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KITE-TIMH 


BOY    LIFE 

STORIES    AND     READINGS 
SELECTED  FROM  THE  WORKS  OF 

WILLIAM  DEAN   HOWELLS 


AND    ARRANGED     FOR    SUPPLEMENTARY 
READING   IN    ELEMENTARY  SCHOOLS   BY 


PERCIVAL     CHUBB 

IJIKKCTOK   OK   ENGLISH    IN  THE 
tTHICAI.   t'Ul  TL:1<K   SCHCK)!.,  .\EW  YOKK 


I LL  U  S  T  RAT  E  D 


HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

NEW   YORK    AND    LONDON 
M  C  M  1  X 


HARPER'S    MODERN    SERIES 

OF  SUPPLEMENTARY  READERS 
FOR  THE  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOLS 


Eaclit  Illustrated,  16mo,  50  Cetils  School. 


BOY   LIFE 

Stories  and  Readings  Selected  from  the  Works  of  William 
Dean  Howells,  and  Arranged  by  Pkrcival  Chubb, 
Director  of  English  in  the  Ethical  Culture  School,  New 
York. 

"The  literary  culture  which  we  are  trying  to  give  our  boys 
and  girls  is  not  sufliciently  contemporaneous,  and  it  is  not 
sufticiently  national  and  American.  .  .  . 

"  Among  the  living  writers  there  is  no  one  whose  work  has 
a  more  distinctively  American  savor  than  that  of  William 
Dean  Howells.  .  .  .  The  juvenile  books  of  Mr.  Howells' 
contain  some  of  the  very  best  pages  ever  written  for  the  en- 
joyment of  young  people." — Percival  Ciiubb. 

(Others  in  Preparation.) 


HARPER  i&  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS,  NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  1909,  by  Harper  &  Brothbrs. 

^li  riahtt  rtstrved. 
Published  September,  1909. 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Introduction ix 

I.  Adventures  in  a  Boy's  Town 

HOW    pony    baker    came    pretty    near 

RUNNING    OFF    WITH    A    CIRCUS      ...  3 

THE    CIRCUS    MAGICIAN I3 

JIM    Leonard's    hair-breadth    escape     .  23 

II.  Life  in  a  Boy's  Town 

the  town 41 

earliest  memories 45 

home  life 47 

the  river 51 

swimming 55 

skating 61 

manners  and  customs 64 

girls 68 

mothers 69 

A  brother    . 73 

a  friend 79 

III.  Games  and  Pastimes 

MARBLES 89 


CONTENTS 

Games  and  Pastimes  (Continued)  pj^oe 

RACES 91 

A   MEAN   TRICK 93 

TOPS 96 

KITES 98 

THE    BUTLER   GUARDS           IO3 

PETS 108 

INDIANS 124 

GUNS 129 

NUTTING 138 

THE    FIRE-ENGINES I45 

IV.  Glimpses  of  the  Larger  World 

THE   travelling    CIRCUS I5I 

PASSING    shows 163 

the    theatre    COMES   TO   TOWN       ...       .  168 

THE    WORLD    OPENED    BY    BOOKS      .      .      .      .  I7I 

V.  The  Last  of  a  Boy's  Town 183 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PACE 
KITE-TIME Frontispiece 

HE    BEGAN    BEING    COLD   AND    STIFF   WITH    HER  THE 

VERY    NEXT    MORNING 5 

THE    FIRST    LOCK 43 

THE    BUTLER   GUARDS IO5 

ALL   AT   ONCE   THERE    THE    INDIANS    WERE      .      .      .  I27 

NUTTING 141 


INTRODUCTION 

'T'HERE  are  two  conspicuous  faults  in  the 
*■•  literary  culture  which  we  are  trying  to  give 
to  our  boys  and  girls  in  our  elementary  and 
secondary  schools:  it  is  not  sufficiently  contem- 
poraneous, and  it  is  not  sufficiently  national 
and  American.  Hence  it  lacks  vitality  and  ac- 
tuality. So  little  of  it  is  carried  over  into  life 
because  so  little  of  it  is  interpretative  of  the  life 
that  is.  It  is  associated  too  exclusively  in  the 
child's  mind  with  things  dead  and  gone — with 
the  Puritan  world  of  Miles  Standish,  the  Revo- 
lutionary days  of  Paul  Revere,  the  Dutch  epoch 
of  Rip  Van  Winkle;  or  with  not  even  this  com- 
paratively recent  national  interest,  it  takes  the 
child  back  to  the  strange  folk  of  the  days  of 
King  Arthur  and  King  Robert  of  Sicily,  of  Ivan- 
hoe  and  the  Ancient  Mariner.  Thus  when  the 
child  leaves  school  his  literary  studies  do  not 
connect  helpfully  with  those  forms  of  literature 
with  which — if  he  reads  at  all — he  is  most  likely 
to  be  concerned:  the  short  story,  the  sketch, 
and    the    popular    essay    of   the    magazines    and 

ix 


INTRODUCTION 

newspapers;  the  new  novel,  or  the  plays  which 
he  may  see  at  the  theatre.  He  has  not  been  in- 
terested in  the  writers  of  his  own  time,  and  has 
never  been  put  in  the  way  of  the  best  contempo- 
rary fiction.  Hence  the  ineffectualness  and  waste- 
fulness of  much  of  our  school  work:  it  does  not 
lead  forward  into  the  life  of  to-day,  nor  help  the 
young  to  judge  intelligently  of  the  popular  books 
which  later  on  will  compete  for  their  favor. 

To  be  sure,  not  a  little  of  the  material  used 
in  our  elementary  schools  is  drawn  from  Long- 
fellow, Whittier,  and  Holmes,  from  Irving  and 
Hawthorne;  but  because  it  is  often  studied  in 
a  so-called  thorough  and,  therefore,  very  deadly 
way  —  slowly  and  laboriously  for  drill,  rather 
than  briskly  for  pleasure — there  is  comparatively 
little  of  it  read,  and  almost  no  sense  gained  of 
its  being  part  of  a  national  literature.  In  the 
high  school,  owing  to  the  unfortunate  domina- 
tion of  the  college  entrance  requirements,  the 
situation  is  not  much  better.  Our  students  leave 
with  a  scant  and  hurried  glimpse — if  any  glimpse 
at  all — of  Emerson,  Thoreau,  and  Whitman,  or 
of  Lowell,  Lanier,  and  Poe;  with  no  intimate 
view  of  Hawthorne,  our  great  classic;  none  at 
all  of  Parkman  and  Fiske,  our  historians;  or  of 
writers  like  Howells,  James,  and  Cable,  or  Wil- 
kins,  Jewett,  and  Deland,  and  a  worthy  com- 
pany of  story-tellers. 


INTRODUCTION 

We  may  well  be  on  our  guard  against  a 
vaunting  nationalism.  It  retards  our  culture. 
There  should  be  no  confusion  of  the  second-rate 
values  of  most  of  our  American  products  with  the 
supreme  values  of  the  greatest  British  classics. 
We  may  work,  of  course,  toward  an  ultimate  ap- 
preciation of  these  greatest  things.  We  fail,  how- 
ever, in  securing  such  appreciation  because  we 
have  failed  to  enlist  those  forms  of  interest  which 
vitalize  and  stimulate  literary  studies — above  all, 
the  patriotic  or  national  interest.  Concord  and 
Cambridge  should  be  dearer,  as  they  are  nearer, 
to  the  young  American  than  even  Stratford  and 
Abbotsford;  Hawthorne  should  be  as  familiar  as 
Goldsmith;  and  Emerson,  as  Addison  or  Burke. 
Ordinarily  it  is  not  so;  and  we  suffer  the  con- 
sequences in  the  failure  of  our  youth  to  grasp 
the  spiritual  ideals  and  the  distinctively  Ameri- 
can democratic  spirit  which  find  expression  in 
the  greatest  work  of  our  literary  masters,  Emer- 
son and  Whitman,  Lowell  and  Lanier.  Our 
culture  and  our  nationalism  both  suffer  thereby. 
Our  literature  suffers  also,  because  we  have  not 
an  instructed  and  interested  public  to  encourage 
excellence. 

Among  the  living  writers  there  is  no  one  whose 
work  has  a  more  distinctively  American  savor 
than  that  of  William  Dean  Howells;  and  it  is 
to    make    his    delightful    writings    more    widely 

xi 


INTRODUCTION 

known  and  more  easily  accessible  that  this  vol- 
ume of  selections  from  his  books  for  the  young 
has  been  prepared  as  a  reading -book  for  the 
elementary  school.  These  juvenile  books  of  Mr. 
Howells  contain  some  of  the  very  best  pages  ever 
written  for  the  enjoyment  of  young  people.  His 
two  books  for  boys — A  Boys  Town  and  The 
Flight  of  Pony  Baker — rank  with  such  favorites 
as   Tom.  Sawyer  and   The  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy. 

These  should  be  introductory  to  the  best  of 
Mr.  Howells'  novels  and  essays  in  the  high  school; 
for  Mr.  Howells,  it  need  scarcely  be  said,  is  one 
of  our  few  masters  of  style:  his  style  is  as  in- 
dividual and  distinguished  as  it  is  felicitous  and 
delicate.  More  important  still,  from  the  edu- 
cational point  of  view,  he  is  one  of  our  most 
modern  writers:  the  spiritual  issues  and  social 
problems  of  our  age,  which  our  older  high-school 
pupils  are  anxious  to  deal  with,  are  alive  in  his 
books.  Our  young  people  should  know  his  Rise 
of  Silas  Lapham  and  A  Hazard  of  New  Fort- 
unesy  as  well  as  his  social  and  literary  criticism. 
As  stimulating  and  alluring  a  volume  of  selec- 
tions may  be  made  for  high-school  students  as 
this  volume  will  be,  we  venture  to  predict,  for  the 
younger  boys  and  girls  of  the  elementary  school. 

In  this  little  book  of  readings  we  have  made, 
we  believe,  an  entirely  legitimate  and  desirable 
use  of  the  books  named  above.     A  Boy's  Town 

xii 


INTRODUCTION 

is  a  series  of  detachable  pictures  and  episodes 
into  which  the  boy — or  the  healthy  girl  who 
loves  boys'  books — may  dip,  as  the  selections 
here  given  will,  we  believe,  tempt  him  to  do. 
The  same  is  true  of  The  Flight  of  Pony  Baker. 
The  volume  is  for  class-room  enjoyment;  for 
happy  hours  of  profitable  reading — profitable, 
because  happy.  Much  of  it  should  be  read 
aloud  rather  than  silently,  and  dramatic  justice 
be  done  to  the  scenes  and  conversations  which 
have  dramatic  quality. 

Percival  Chubb. 


I 

ADVENTURES    IN    A    BOY'S   TOWN 


HOW    PONY    BAKER    CAME    PRETTY    NEAR 
RUNNING    OFF    WITH    A    CIRCUS 

JUST  before  the  circus  came,  about  the  end 
of  July,  something  happened  that  made 
Pony  mean  to  run  off  more  than  anything  that 
ever  was.  His  father  and  mother  were  coming 
home  from  a  walk,  in  the  evening;  it  was  so  hot 
nobody  could  stay  in  the  house,  and  just  as  they 
were  coming  to  the  front  steps  Pony  stole  up 
behind  them  and  tossed  a  snowball  which  he  had 
got  out  of  the  garden  at  his  mother,  just  for 
fun.  The  flower  struck  her  very  softly  on  her 
hair,  for  she  had  no  bonnet  on,  and  she  gave 
a  jump  and  a  hollo  that  made  Pony  laugh;  and 
then  she  caught  him  by  the  arm  and  boxed  his 
ears. 

"Oh,  my  goodness!  It  was  you,  was  it,  you 
good-for-nothing  boy?  I  thought  it  was  a  bat!" 
she  said,  and  she  broke  out  crying  and  ran  into 
the  house,  and  would  not  mind  his  father, 
who  was  calling  after  her,  "  Lucy,  Lucy,  my  dear 
child!" 

3 


BOY   LIFE 

Pony  was  crying,  too,  for  he  did  not  intend  to 
frighten  his  mother,  and  when  she  took  his  fun. 
as  if  he  had  done  something  wicked  he  did  not 
know  what  to  think.  He  stole  off  to  bed,  and  he 
lay  there  crying  in  the  dark  and  expecting  that 
she  would  come  to  him,  as  she  always  did,  to  have 
him  say  that  he  was  sorry  when  he  had  been 
wicked,  or  to  tell  him  that  she  was  sorry  when  she 
thought  she  had  not  been  quite  fair  with  him. 
But  she  did  not  come,  and  after  a  good  while  his 
father  came  and  said :  "  Are  you  awake.  Pony .? 
I  am  sorry  your  mother  misunderstood  your  fun. 
But  you  mustn't  mind  it,  dear  boy.  She's  not 
well,  and  she's  very  nervous." 

"I  don't  care!"  Pony  sobbed  out.  "She  won't 
have  a  chance  to  touch  me  again!"  For  he  had 
made  up  his  mind  to  run  off  with  the  circus  which 
was  coming  the  next  Tuesday. 

He  turned  his  face  away,  sobbing,  and  his 
father,  after  standing  by  his  bed  a  moment,  went 
away  without  saying  anything  but  "Don't  forget 
your  prayers.  Pony.  You'll  feel  differently  in  the 
morning,  I  hope." 

Pony  fell  asleep  thinking  how  he  would  come 
back  to  the  Boy's  Town  with  the  circus  when  he 
was  grown  up,  and  when  he  came  out  in  the  ring 
riding  three  horses  bareback  he  would  see  his 
father  and  mother  and  sisters  in  one  of  the  lower 
seats.     They  would  not  know  him,  but  he  would 

4 


HE     BEGAN     BEING     COLD    AND     STIFF     WITH    HER 
THE    VERY    NEXT    MORNING 


ADVENTURES    IN    A   BOY'S   TOWN 

know  them,  and  he  would  send  for  them  to  come 
to  the  dressing-room,  and  would  be  very  good  to 
them,  all  but  his  mother;  he  would  be  very  cold 
and  stiff  with  her,  though  he  would  know  that  she 
was  prouder  of  him  than  all  the  rest  put  together, 
and  she  would  go  away  almost  crying. 

He  began  being  cold  and  stiff  with  her  the 
very  next  morning,  although  she  was  better  than 
ever  to  him,  and  gave  him  waffles  for  breakfast 
with  unsalted  butter,  and  tried  to  pet  him  up. 
That  whole  day  she  kept  trying  to  do  things  for 
him,  but  he  would  scarcely  speak  to  her;  and  at 
night  she  came  to  him  and  said,  "What  makes 
you  act  so  strangely.  Pony  .?  Are  you  offended 
with  your  mother  r' 

"Yes,  I  am!"  said  Pony,  haughtily,  and  he 
twitched  away  from  where  she  was  sitting  on  the 
side  of  his  bed,  leaning  over  him. 

"On  account  of  last  night.  Pony?"  she  asked, 
softly. 

"I  reckon  you  know  well  enough,"  said  Pony, 
and  he  tried  to  be  disgusted  with  her  for  being 
such  a  hypocrite,  but  he  had  to  set  his  teeth 
hard,  hard,  or  he  would  have  broken  down  cry- 
ing. 

"If  it's  for  that,  you  mustn't.  Pony  dear. 
You  don't  know  how  you  frightened  me.  When 
your  snowball  hit  me,  I  felt  sure  it  was  a  bat, 
and  I'm  so  afraid  of  bats,  you  know.     I  didn't 

7 


BOY   LIFE 

mean  to  hurt  my  poor  boy's  feelings  so,  and  you 
mustn't  mind  it  any  more,  Pony." 

She  stooped  down  and  kissed  him  on  the  fore- 
head, but  he  did  not  move  or  say  anything;  only, 
after  that  he  felt  more  forgiving  tov^ard  his 
mother.  He  made  up  his  mind  to  be  good  to 
her  along  with  the  rest  when  he  came  back  with 
the  circus.  But  still  he  meant  to  run  off  with  the 
circus.  He  did  not  see  how  he  could  do  any- 
thing else,  for  he  had  told  all  the  boys  that  day 
that  he  was  going  to  do  it;  and  when  they  just 
laughed,  and  said,  "Oh  yes.  Think  you  can 
fool  your  grandmother!  It'll  be  like  running  off 
with  the  Indians,"  Pony  wagged  his  head,  and 
said  they  would  see  whether  it  would  or  not,  and 
offered  to  bet  them  what  they  dared. 

The  morning  of  the  circus  day  all  the  fellows 
went  out  to  the  corporation  line  to  meet  the  cir- 
cus procession.  There  were  ladies  and  knights, 
the  first  thing,  riding  on  spotted  horses;  and  then 
a  band-chariot,  all  made  up  of  swans  and  drag- 
ons. There  were  about  twenty  baggage-wagons; 
but  before  you  got  to  them  there  was  the  great- 
est thing  of  all.  It  was  a  chariot  drawn  by 
welve  Shetland  ponies,  and  it  was  shaped  like 
1  big  shell,  and  around  in  the  bottom  of  the 
shell  there  were  little  circus  actors,  boys  and 
girls,  dressed  in  their  circus  clothes,  and  they 
all    looked     exactly    like    fairies.     They    scarce 


ADVENTURES    IN  A   BOY'S   TOWN 

seemed  to  see  the  fellows,  as  they  ran  alongside 
of  their  chariot,  but  Hen  Billard  and  Archy 
Hawkins,  who  were  always  cutting  up,  got  close 
enough  to  throw  some  peanuts  to  the  circus  boys, 
and  some  of  the  little  circus  girls  laughed,  and 
the  driver  looked  around  and  cracked  his  whip 
at  the  fellows,  and  they  all  had  to  get  out  of  the 
way  then. 

Jim  Leonard  said  that  the  circus  boys  and 
girls  were  all  stolen,  and  nobody  was  allowed  to 
come  close  to  them  for  fear  they  would  try  to 
send  word  to  their  friends.  Some  of  the  fellows 
did  not  believe  1^,  and  wanted  to  know  how  he 
knew  it;  and  he  said  he  read  it  in  a  paper;  after 
that  nobody  could  deny  it.  But  he  said  that  if 
you  went  with  the  circus  men  of  your  own  free 
will  they  would  treat  you  first-rate;  only  they 
would  give  you  burnt  brandy  to  keep  you  little; 
nothing  else  but  burnt  brandy  would  do  it,  but 
that  would  do  it,  sure. 

Pony  was  scared  at  first  when  he  heard  that 
most  of  the  circus  fellows  were  stolen,  but  he 
thought  if  he  went  of  his  own  accord  he  would 
be  all  right.  Still,  he  did  not  feel  so  much  like 
running  off  with  the  circus  as  he  did  before  the 
circus  came.  He  asked  Jim  Leonard  whether 
the  circus  men  made  all  the  children  drink  burnt 
brandy;  and  Archy  Hawkins  and  Hen  Billard 
heard  him  ask,  and  began  to  mock  him.     They 

9 


BOY   LIFE 

took  him  up  between  them,  one  by  his  arms  and 
the  other  by  the  legs,  and  ran  along  with  him, 
and  kept  saying,  "Does  it  want  to  be  a  great 
big  circus  actor  ?  Then  it  shall,  so  it  shall," 
and,  "We'll  tell  the  circus  men  to  be  very  care- 
ful of  you.  Pony  dear!"  till  Pony  wriggled  him- 
self loose  and  began  to  stone  them. 

After  that  they  had  to  let  him  alone,  for  when 
a  fellow  began  to  stone  you  in  the  Boy's  Town 
you  had  to  let  him  alone,  unless  you  were  going 
to  whip  him,  and  the  fellows  only  wanted  to 
have  a  little  fun  with  Pony.  But  what  they  did 
made  him  all  the  more  resolved  to  run  away 
with  the  circus,  just  to  show  them. 

He  helped  to  carry  water  for  the  circus  men's 
horses,  along  with  the  boys  who  earned  their 
admission  that  way.  He  had  no  need  to  do  it, 
because  his  father  was  going  to  take  him  in, 
anyway;  but  Jim  Leonard  said  it  was  the  only 
way  to  get  acquainted  with  the  circus  men.  Still, 
Pony  was  afraid  to  speak  to  them,  and  he  would 
not  have  said  a  word  to  any  of  them  if  it  had 
not  been  for  one  of  them  speaking  to  him  first, 
when  he  saw  him  come  lugging  a  great  pail  of 
water,  and  bending  far  over  on  the  right  to  bal- 
ance it. 

"That's  right,"  the  circus  man  said  to  Pony. 
"If  you  ever  fell  into  that  bucket  you'd  drown, 
sure." 

10 


ADVENTURES   IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

He  was  a  big  fellow,  with  funny  eyes,  and  he 
had  a  white  bulldog  at  his  heels;  and  all  the 
fellows  said  he  was  the  one  who  guarded  the 
outside  of  the  tent  when  the  circus  began,  and 
kept  the  boys  from  hooking  in  under  the  curtain. 

Even  then  Pony  would  not  have  had  the  cour- 
age to  say  anything,  but  Jim  Leonard  was  just 
behind  him  with  another  bucket  of  water,  and 
he  spoke  up  for  him.  "He  wants  to  go  with 
the  circus." 

They  both  set  down  their  buckets,  and  Pony 
felt  himself  turning  pale  when  the  circus  man 
came  toward  them.  "Wants  to  go  with  the  cir- 
cus, heigh .?  Let's  have  a  look  at  you."  He 
took  Pony  by  the  shoulders  and  turned  him 
slowly  round,  and  looked  at  his  nice  clothes,  and 
took  him  by  the  chin.     "Orphan  ?"  he  asked. 

Pony  did  not  know  what  to  say,  but  Jim  Leon- 
ard nodded;  perhaps  he  did  not  know  what  to 
say,  either;  but  Pony  felt  as  if  they  had  both 
told  a  lie. 

"  Parents  living  ?"  The  circus  man  looked  at 
Pony,  and  Pony  had  to  say  that  they  were. 

He  gasped  out,  "Yes,"  so  that  you  could 
scarcely  hear  him,  and  the  circus  man  said: 

"Well,  that's  right.  When  we  take  an  or- 
phan, we  want  to  have  his  parents  living,  so 
that  we  can  go  and  ask  them  what  sort  of  a  boy 
he  is." 

II 


BOY   LIFE 

He  looked  at  Pony  in  such  a  friendly,  smiling 
way  that  Pony  took  courage  to  ask  him  whether 
they  would  want  him  to  drink  burnt  brandy. 

"What  for?" 

"To  keep  me  little." 

"Oh,  I  see."  The  circus  man  took  off  his 
hat  and  rubbed  his  forehead  with  a  silk  hand- 
kerchief, which  he  threw  into  the  top  of  his  hat 
before  he  put  it  on  again.  "No,  I  don't  know 
as  we  will.  We're  rather  short  of  giants  just 
now.  How  would  you  like  to  drink  a  glass  of 
elephant  milk  every  morning  and  grow  into  an 
eight-footer  ?" 

Pony  said  he  didn't  know  whether  he  would 
like  to  be  quite  so  big;  and  then  the  circus  man 
said  perhaps  he  would  rather  go  for  an  India- 
rubber  man;  that  was  what  they  called  the  con- 
tortionists in  those  days. 

"Let's  feel  of  you  again."  The  circus  man 
took  hold  of  Pony  and  felt  his  joints.  "You're 
put  together  pretty  tight;  but  I  reckon  we  could 
make  you  do  if  you'd  let  us  take  you  apart  with 
a  screw-driver  and  limber  up  the  pieces  with 
rattlesnake  oil.  Wouldn't  like  it,  heigh  ?  Well, 
let  me  see!"  The  circus  man  thought  a  moment, 
and  then  he  said:  "How  would  double-somer- 
saults on  four  horses  bareback  do .?" 

Pony  said  that  would  do,  and  then  the  circus 
man   said:    "Well,   then,   we've  just   hit   it,    be- 

12 


ADVENTURES   IN    A   BOY'S   TOWN 

cause  our  double-somersault,  four-horse  bare- 
back is  just  going  to  leave  us,  and  we  want  a 
new  one  right  away.  Now,  there's  more  than 
one  way  of  joining  a  circus,  but  the  best  way  is 
to  wait  on  your  front  steps  with  your  things  all 
packed  up,  and  the  procession  comes  along  at 
about  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  picks  you 
up.     Which  'd  you  rather  do .?" 

Pony  pushed  his  toe  into  the  turf,  as  he  al- 
ways did  when  he  was  ashamed,  but  he  made 
out  to  say  he  would  rather  wait  out  on  the  front 
steps. 

"Well,  then,  that's  all  settled,"  said  the  circus 
man.  "We'll  be  along,"  and  he  was  going  away 
with  his  dog,  but  Jim  Leonard  called  after  him: 

"You  hain't  asked  him  whereabouts  he  lives  .?" 

The  circus  man  kept  on,  and  he  said,  without 
looking  around,  "Oh,  that's  all  right.  We've 
got  somebody  that  looks  after  that." 

"It's  the  magician,"  Jim  Leonard  whispered 
to  Pony,  and  they  walked  away. 


THE   CIRCUS   MAGICIAN 

A  crowd  of  the  fellows  had  been  waiting  to 
know  what  the  boys  had  been  talking  about  to 
the  circus  man,  but  Jim  Leonard  said,  "Don't 
you   tell,   Pony   Baker!"   and  he  started  to  run, 

13 


BOY    LIFE 

and  that  made  Pony  run,  too,  and  they  both  ran 
till  they  got  away  from  the  fellows. 

"You  have  got  to  keep  it  a  secret;  for  if  a 
lot  of  fellows  find  it  out  the  constable  '11  get  to 
know  it,  and  he'll  be  watching  out  around  the 
corner  of  your  house,  and  when  the  procession 
comes  along  and  he  sees  you're  really  going  he'll 
take  you  up,  and  keep  you  in  jail  till  your  father 
comes   and   bails  you  out.     Now,  you    mind!" 

Pony  said,  "Oh,  I  won't  tell  anybody,"  and 
when  Jim  Leonard  said  that  if  a  circus  man  was 
to  feel  him  over,  that  way,  and  act  so  kind  of 
pleasant  and  friendly,  he  would  be  too  proud  to 
speak  to  anybody.  Pony  confessed  that  he  knew 
it  was  a  great  thing  all  the  time. 

"The  way  '11  be,"  said  Jim  Leonard,  "to  keep 
in  with  him,  and  he'll  keep  the  others  from  pick- 
ing on  you;  they'll  be  afraid  to,  on  account  of 
his  dog.  You'll  see,  he'll  be  the  one  to  come  for 
you  to-night;  and  if  the  constable  is  there  the 
dog  won't  let  him  touch  you.  I  never  thought 
of  that." 

Perhaps  on  account  of  thinking  of  it  now  Jim 
Leonard  felt  free  to  tell  the  other  fellows  how 
Pony  was  going  to  run  off,  for  when  a  crowd  of 
them  came  along  he  told  them.  They  said  it 
was  splendid,  and  they  said  that  if  they  could 
make  their  mothers  let  them,  or  if  they  could  get 
out  of  the  house  without  their  mothers  knowing 

14 


ADVENTURES   IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

it,  they  were  going  to  sit  up  with  Pony  and  watch 
out  for  the  procession,  and  bid  him  good-bye. 

At  dinner-time  he  found  out  that  his  father 
was  going  to  take  him  and  all  his  sisters  to  the 
circus,  and  his  father  and  mother  were  so  nice 
to  him,  asking  him  about  the  procession  and 
everything,  that  his  heart  ached  at  the  thought 
of  running  away  from  home  and  leaving  them. 
But  now  he  had  to  do  it;  the  circus  man  was 
coming  for  him,  and  he  could  not  back  out;  he 
did  not  know  what  would  happen  if  he  did.  It 
seemed  to  him  as  if  his  mother  had  done  every- 
thing she  could  to  make  it  harder  for  him.  She 
had  stewed  chicken  for  dinner,  with  plenty  of 
gravy,  and  hot  biscuits  to  sop  in,  and  peach  pre- 
serves afterward;  and  she  kept  helping  him  to 
more,  because  she  said  boys  that  followed  the 
circus  around  got  dreadfully  hungry.  The  eat- 
ing seemed  to  keep  his  heart  down;  it  was  try- 
ing to  get  into  his  throat  all  the  time;  and  he 
knew  that  she  was  being  good  to  him,  but  if  he 
had  not  known  it  he  would  have  believed  his 
mother  was  just  doing  it  to  mock  him. 

Pony  had  to  go  to  the  circus  with  his  father 
and  sisters,  and  to  get  on  his  shoes  and  a  clean 
collar.  But  a  crowd  of  the  fellows  were  there  at 
the  tent  door  to  watch  out  whether  the  circus 
man  would  say  anything  to  him  when  he  went 
in;    and  Jim  Leonard  rubbed  against  him,  when 

15 


BOY   LIFE 

the  man  passed  with  his  dog  and  did  not  even 
look  at  Pony,  and  said:  "He's  just  pretending. 
He  don't  want  your  father  to  know.  He'll  be 
round  for  you,  sure.  I  saw  him  kind  of  smile  to 
one  of  the  other  circus  men." 

It  was  a  splendid  circus,  and  there  were  more 
things  than  Pony  ever  saw  in  a  circus  before. 
But  instead  of  hating  to  have  it  over,  it  seemed 
to  him  that  it  would  never  come  to  an  end.  He 
kept  thinking  and  thinking,  and  wondering 
whether  he  would  like  to  be  a  circus  actor;  and 
when  the  one  came  out  who  rode  four  horses 
bareback  and  stood  on  his  head  on  the  last  horse, 
and  drove  with  the  reins  in  his  teeth,  Pony  thought 
that  he  never  could  learn  to  do  it;  and  if  he  could 
not  learn  he  did  not  know  what  the  circus  men 
would  say  to  him.  It  seemed  to  him  that  it  was 
very  strange  he  had  not  told  that  circus  man 
that  he  didn't  know  whether  he  could  do  it  or 
not;    but  he  had  not,  and  now  it  was  too  late. 

A  boy  came  around  calling  lemonade,  and 
Pony's  father  bought  some  for  each  of  the  chil- 
dren, but  Pony  could  hardly  taste  his. 

"What  is  the  matter  with  you,  Pony  ?  Are 
you  sick  ?"  his  father  asked. 

"No.  I  don't  care  for  any;  that's  all.  I'm 
well,"  said  Pony;   but  he  felt  very  miserable. 

After  supper  Jim  Leonard  came  round  and 
went  up  to  Pony's  room  with  him  to  help  him 

i6 


ADVENTURES   IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

pack,  and  he  was  so  gay  about  it  and  said  he 
only  wished  he  was  going,  that  Pony  cheered  up 
a  little.  Jim  had  brought  a  large  square  of 
checked  gingham  that  he  said  he  did  not  believe 
his  mother  would  ever  want,  and  that  he  would 
tell  her  he  had  taken  if  she  asked  for  it.  He 
said  it  would  be  the  very  thing  for  Pony  to  carry 
his  clothes  in,  for  it  was  light  and  strong  and 
would  hold  a  lot.  He  helped  Pony  to  choose 
his  things  out  of  his  bureau  drawers:  a  pair  of 
stockings  and  a  pair  of  white  pantaloons  and  a 
blue  roundabout,  and  a  collar,  and  two  handker- 
chiefs. That  was  all  he  said  Pony  would  need, 
because  he  would  have  his  circus  clothes  right 
away,  and  there  was  no  use  taking  things  that 
he  would  never  wear. 

Jim  did  these  up  in  the  square  of  gingham, 
and  he  tied  it  across  eater-cornered  twice,  in 
double  knots,  and  showed  Pony  how  he  could 
put  his  hand  through  and  carry  it  just  as  easy. 
He  hid  it  under  the  bed  for  him,  and  he  told 
Pony  that  if  he  was  in  Pony's  place  he  should 
go  to  bed  right  away  or  pretty  soon,  so  that  no- 
body would  think  anything,  and  maybe  he  could 
get  some  sleep  before  he  got  up  and  went  down 
to  wait  on  the  front  steps  for  the  circus  to  come 
along.  He  promised  to  be  there  with  the  other 
boys  and  keep  them  from  fooling  or  making  a 
noise,  or  doing  anything  to  wake  his  father  up, 

17 


BOY    LIFE 

or  make  the  constable  come.  "You  see,  Pony," 
he  said,  "if  you  can  run  off  this  year,  and  come 
back  with  the  circus  next  year,  then  a  whole 
lot  of  fellows  can  run  off.     Don't  you  see  that  ?" 

Pony  said  he  saw  that,  but  he  said  he  wished 
some  of  the  other  fellows  were  going  now,  be- 
cause he  did  not  know  any  of  the  circus  boys 
and  he  was  afraid  he  might  feel  kind  of  lone- 
some. But  Jim  Leonard  said  he  would  soon  get 
acquainted,  and,  anyway,  a  year  would  go  before 
he  knew  it,  and  then  if  the  other  fellows  could 
get  off  he  would   have   plenty  of  company. 

As  soon  as  Jim  Leonard  was  gone  Pony  un- 
dressed and  got  into  bed.  He  was  not  sleepy, 
but  he  thought  maybe  it  would  be  just  as  well  to 
rest  a  little  while  before  the  circus  procession 
came  along  for  him;  and,  anyway,  he  could 
not  bear  to  go  down-stairs  and  be  with  the  family 
when  he  was  going  to  leave  them  so  soon,  and 
not  come  back  for  a  whole  year. 

After  a  good  while,  or  about  the  time  he  usual- 
ly came  in  from  playing,  he  heard  his  mother 
saying:  "Where  in  the  world  is  Pony.?  Has  he 
come  in  yet.?  Have  you  seen  him,  girls.?  Pony! 
Pony!"  she  called. 

But  somehow  Pony  could  not  get  his  voice 
up  out  of  his  throat;  he  wanted  to  answer  her, 
but  he  could  not  speak.  He  heard  her  say,  "Go 
out  to  the  front  steps,  girls,  and  see  if  you  can 

i8 


ADVENTURES    IN    A   BOY'S   TOWN 

see  him,"  and  then  he  heard  her  coming  up  the 
stairs;  and  she  came  into  his  room,  and  when 
she  saw  him  lying  there  in  bed,  she  said:  "Why, 
I  beHeve  in  my  heart  the  child's  asleep!  Pony! 
Are  you  awake  ?" 

Pony  made  out  to  say  no,  and  his  mother  said: 
"My!  what  a  fright  you  gave  mel  Why  didn't 
you  answer  me  ?  Are  you  sick,  Pony  ?  Your 
father  said  you  didn't  seem  well  at  the  circus; 
and  you  didn't  eat  any  supper,   hardly." 

Pony  said  he  was  first-rate,  but  he  spoke  very 
low,  and  his  mother  came  up  and  sat  down  on 
the  side  of  his  bed. 

"What  is  the  matter,  child.?"  She  bent  over 
and  felt  his  forehead.  "No,  you  haven't  got  a 
bit  of  fever,"  she  said,  and  she  kissed  him,  and 
began  to  tumble  his  short  black  hair  in  the  way 
she  had,  and  she  got  one  of  his  hands  between 
her  two,  and  kept  rubbing  it.  *'  But  you've  had 
a  long,  tiresome  day,  and  that's  why  you've  gone 
to  bed,  1  suppose.  But  if  you  feel  the  least  sick. 
Pony,  I'll  send  foi  the  doctor." 

Pony  said  he  was  not  sick  at  all;  just  tired; 
and  that  was  true;  he  felt  as  if  he  never  wanted 
to  get  up  again. 

His  mother  put  her  arm  under  his  neck,  and 
pressed  her  face  close  down  to  his,  and  said  very 
low:  "Pony  dear,  you  don't  feel  hard  toward 
your  mother  for  what  she  did  the  other  night  ?" 

^9 


BOY  LIFE 

He  knew  she  meant  boxing  his  ears,  when  he 
was  not  to  blame,  and  he  said:  "Oh  no,"  and 
then  he  threw  his  arms  round  her  neck  and  cried; 
and  she  told  him  not  to  cry,  and  that  she  would 
never  do  such  a  thing  again;  but  she  was  really 
so  frightened  she  did  not  know  what  she  was 
doing. 

When  he  quieted  down,  she  said:  "Now  say 
your  prayers.  Pony,  *Our  Father,'"  and  she  said, 
"Our  Father"  all  through  with  him,  and  after 
that,  **Now  I  lay  me,"  just  as  when  he  was  a 
very  little  fellow.  After  they  had  finished  she 
stooped  over  and  kissed  him  again,  and  when  he 
turned  his  face  into  his  pillow  she  kept  smooth- 
ing his  hair  with  her  hand  for  about  a  minute. 
Then  she  went  away. 

Pony  could  hear  them  stirring  about  for  a  good 
while  down-stairs.  His  father  came  in  from  up- 
town at  last,  and  asked :  "  Has  Pony  come  in  .?" 

And  his  mother  said;  "Yes,  he's  up  in  bed. 
I  wouldn't  disturb  him,  Henry.  He's  asleep  by 
this  time." 

His  father  said:  **I  don't  know  what  to  make 
of  the  boy.  If  he  keeps  on  acting  so  strangely 
I  shall  have  the  doctor  see  him  in  the  morning." 

Pony  felt  dreadfully  to  think  how  far  away 
from  them  he  should  be  in  the  morning,  and  he 
would  have  given  anything  if  he  could  have 
gone  down  to  his  father  and  mother  and  told 

20 


ADVENTURES   IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

them  what  he  was  going  to  do.  But  it  did  not 
seem  as  if  he  could. 

By-and-by  he  began  to  be  sleepy,  and  then  he 
dozed  off,  but  he  thought  it  was  hardly  a  minute 
before  he  heard  the  circus  band,  and  knew  that 
the  procession  was  coming  for  him.  He  jumped 
out  of  bed  and  put  on  his  things  as  fast  as  he 
could;  but  his  roundabout  had  only  one  sleeve 
to  it,  somehow,  and  he  had  to  button  the  lower 
buttons  of  his  trousers  to  keep  it  on.  He  got 
his  bundle  and  stole  down  to  the  front  door  with- 
out seeming  to  touch  his  feet  to  anything,  and 
when  he  got  out  on  the  front  steps  he  saw  the 
circus  magician  coming  along.  By  that  time  the 
music  had  stopped  and  Pony  could  not  see  any 
procession.  The  magician  had  on  a  tall,  peaked 
hat,  like  a  witch.  He  took  up  the  whole  street, 
he  was  so  wide  in  the  black  glazed  gown  that 
hung  from  his  arms  when  he  stretched  them  out, 
for  he  seemed  to  be  groping  along  that  way,  with 
his  wand  in  one  hand,  like  a  blind  man. 

He  kept  saying  in  a  kind  of  deep,  shaking 
voice,  "It's  all  glory;  it's  all  glory,"  and  the 
sound  of  those  words  froze  Pony's  blood.  He 
tried  to  get  back  into  the  house  again,  so  that 
the  magician  should  not  find  him,  but  when  he 
felt  for  the  door-knob  there  was  no  door  there 
anywhere;  nothing  but  a  smooth  wall.  Then  he 
sat  down  on  the  steps  and  tried  to  shrink  up  so 

21 


BOY   LIFE 

little  that  the  magician  would  miss  him;  but  he 
saw  his  wide  goggles  getting  nearer  and  nearer; 
and  then  his  father  and  the  doctor  were  standing 
by  him  looking  down  at  him,  and  the  doctor 
said: 

"He  has  been  walking  in  his  sleep;  he  must 
be  bled,"  and  he  got  out  his  lancet,  when  Pony 
heard  his  mother  caUing:  "Pony,  Pony!  What's 
the  matter  ?  Have  you  got  the  nightmare  ?"  and 
he  woke  up,  and  found  it  was  just  morning. 

The  sun  was  shining  in  at  his  window,  and  it 
made  him  so  glad  to  think  that  by  this  time  the 
circus  was  far  away  and  he  was  not  with  it,  that 
he  hardly  knew  what  to  do. 

He  was  not  very  well  for  two  or  three  days 
afterward,  and  his  mother  let  him  stay  out  of 
school  to  see  whether  he  was  really  going  to  be 
sick  or  not.  When  he  went  back  most  of  the 
fellows  had  forgotten  that  he  had  been  going  to 
run  off  with  the  circus.  Some  of  them  that  hap- 
pened to  think  of  it  plagued  him  a  little  and 
asked  how  he  liked  being  a  circus  actor. 

Hen  Billard  was  the  worst;  he  said  he  reck- 
oned the  circus  magician  got  scared  when  he 
saw  what  a  whaler  Pony  was,  and  told  the  circus 
men  that  they  would  have  to  get  a  new  tent  to 
hold  him;  and  that  was  the  reason  why  they 
didn't  take  him.  Archy  Hawkins  said:  "How 
long  did   you   have   to   wait  on   the  front  steps, 

22 


ADVENTURES   IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

Pony  dear  ?"  But  after  that  he  was  pretty  good 
to  him,  and  said  he  reckoned  they  had  better  not 
any  of  them  pretend  that  Pony  had  not  tried  to 
run  off  if  they  had  not  been  up  to  see. 

Pony  himself  could  never  be  exactly  sure 
whether  he  had  waited  on  the  front  steps  and 
seen  the  circus  magician  or  not.  Sometimes  it 
seemed  all  of  it  like  a  dream,  and  sometimes  only 
part  of  it.  Jim  Leonard  tried  to  help  him  make 
it  out,  but  they  could  not.  He  said  it  was  a  pity 
he  had  overslept  himself,  for  if  he  had  come  to 
bid  Pony  good-bye,  the  way  he  said,  then  he 
could  have  told  just  how  much  of  it  was  a  dream 
and  how  much  was  not. 


JIM    LEONARD'S    HAIR-BREADTH    ESCAPE 

Jim  Leonard's  stable  used  to  stand  on  the  flat 
near  the  river,  and  on  a  rise  of  ground  above  it 
stood  Jim  Leonard's  log-cabin.  The  boys  called 
it  Jim  Leonard's  log-cabin,  but  it  was  really  his 
mother's,  and  the  stable  was  hers,  too.  It  was 
a  log  stable,  but  up  where  the  gable  began  the 
logs  stopped,  and  it  was  weather-boarded  the 
rest  of  the  way,  and  the  roof  was  shingled. 

Jim  Leonard  said  it  was  all  logs  once,  and 
that  the  roof  was  loose  clapboards,  held  down 
by  logs  that  ran  across  them,  like  the  roofs  in 

23 


BOY   LIFE 

the  early  times,  before  there  were  shingles  or 
nails,  or  anything,  in  the  country.  But  none  of 
the  oldest  boys  had  ever  seen  it  like  that,  and 
you  had  to  take  Jim  Leonard's  word  for  it  if 
you  wanted  to  believe  it.  The  little  fellows  near- 
ly all  did;  but  everybody  said  afterward  it  was  a 
good  thing  for  Jim  Leonard  that  it  was  not  that 
kind  of  roof  when  he  had  his  hair-breadth  es- 
cape on  it.  He  said  himself  that  he  would  not 
have  cared  if  it  had  been;  but  that  was  when  it 
was  all  over,  and  his  mother  had  whipped  him, 
and  everything,  and  he  was  telling  the  boys 
about  it. 

He  said  that  in  his  Pirate  Book  lots  of  fellows 
on  rafts  got  to  land  when  they  were  shipwrecked, 
and  that  the  old-fashioned  roof  would  have  been 
just  like  a  raft,  anyway,  and  he  could  have  steered 
it  right  across  the  river  to  Delorac's  Island  as 
easy!  Pony  Baker  thought  very  likely  he  could, 
but  Hen  Billard  said: 

"Well,  why  didn't  you  do  it,  with  the  kind  of 
a  roof  you  had  .?" 

Some  of  the  boys  mocked  Jim  Leonard;  but 
a  good  many  of  them  thought  he  could  have  done 
it  if  he  could  have  got  into  the  eddy  that  there 
was  over  by  the  island.  If  he  could  have  landed 
there,  once,  he  could  have  camped  out  and  lived 
on  fish  till  the  river  fell. 

It  was  that  spring,  about  fifty-four  years  ago, 

24 


ADVENTURES   IN   A   BOY'S  TOWN 

when  the  freshet,  which  always  came  in  the  spring, 
was  the  worst  that  anybody  could  remember. 
The  country  above  the  Boy's  Town  was  under 
water  for  miles  and  miles.  The  river  -  bottoms 
were  flooded  so  that  the  corn  had  to  be  all  planted 
over  again  when  the  water  went  down.  The 
freshet  tore  away  pieces  of  orchard,  and  apple- 
trees  in  bloom  came  sailing  along  with  logs  and 
fence- rails  and  chicken -coops,  and  pretty  soon 
dead  cows  and  horses.  There  was  a  dog  chained 
to  a  dog-kennel  that  went  by,  howling  awfully; 
the  boys  would  have  given  anything  if  they  could 
have  saved  him,  but  the  yellow  river  whirled  him 
out  of  sight  behind  the  middle  pier  of  the  bridge, 
which  everybody  was  watching  from  the  bank, 
expecting  it  to  go  any  minute.  The  water  was 
up  within  four  or  five  feet  of  the  bridge,  and  the 
boys  believed  that  if  a  good  big  log  had  come 
along  and  hit  it,  the  bridge  would  have  been 
knocked  loose  from  its  piers  and  carried  down 
the  river. 

Perhaps  it  would,  and  perhaps  it  would  not. 
The  boys  all  ran  to  watch  it  as  soon  as  school 
was  out,  and  stayed  till  they  had  to  go  to  sup- 
per. After  supper  some  of  their  mothers  let 
them  come  back  and  stay  till  bedtime,  if  they 
would  promise  to  keep  a  full  yard  back  from 
the  edge  of  the  bank.  They  could  not  be  sure 
just  how  much  a  yard  was,  and  they  nearly  all 

25 


BOY    LIFE 

sat  down  on  the  edge  and  let  their  legs  hang 
over. 

Jim  Leonard  was  there,  holloing  and  running 
up  and  down  the  bank,  and  showing  the  other 
boys  things  away  out  in  the  river  that  nobody 
else  could  see;  he  said  he  saw  a  man  out  there. 
He  had  not  been  to  supper,  and  he  had  not  been 
to  school  all  day,  which  might  have  been  the  rea- 
son why  he  would  rather  stay  with  the  men  and 
watch  the  bridge  than  go  home  to  supper;  his 
mother  would  have  been  waiting  for  him  with  a 
sucker  from  the  pear-tree.  He  told  the  boys  that 
while  they  were  gone  he  went  out  with  one  of 
the  men  on  the  bridge  as  far  as  the  middle  pier, 
and  it  shook  like  a  leaf;  he  showed  with  his  hand 
how  it  shook. 

Jim  Leonard  was  a  fellow  who  believed  he 
did  all  kinds  of  things  that  he  would  like  to  have 
done;  and  the  big  boys  just  laughed.  That  made 
Jim  Leonard  mad,  and  he  said  that  as  soon  as 
the  bridge  began  to  go,  he  was  going  to  run  out  on 
it  and  go  with  it;  and  then  they  would  see  whether 
he  was  a  liar  or  not!  They  mocked  him  and 
danced  round  him  till  he  cried.  But  Pony  Baker, 
who  had  come  with  his  father,  believed  that  Jim 
Leonard  would  really  have  done  it;  and  at  any 
rate,  he  felt  sorry  for  him  when  Jim  cried. 

He  stayed  later  than  any  of  the  little  fellows, 
because  his  father  was  with  him,  and  even  all  the 

26 


ADVENTURES    IN    A   BOY'S   TOWN 

big  boys  had  gone  home  except  Hen  Billard,  when 
Pony  left  Jim  Leonard  on  the  bank  and  stumbled 
sleepily  away,  with  his  hand  in  his  father's. 

When  Pony  was  gone,  Hen  Billard  said:  *'Well, 
going  to  stay  all  night,  Jim?" 

And  Jim  Leonard  answered  back,  as  cross  as 
could  be,  "Yes,  I  am!"  And  he  said  the  men 
who  were  sitting  up  to  watch  the  bridge  were  going 
to  give  him  some  of  their  coffee,  and  that  would 
keep  him  awake.  But  perhaps  he  thought  this 
because  he  wanted  some  coffee  so  badly.  He 
was  awfully  hungry,  for  he  had  not  had  anything 
since  breakfast,  except  a  piece  of  bread-and-butter 
that  he  got  Pony  Baker  to  bring  him  in  his  pocket 
when  he  came  down  from  school  at  noontime. 

Hen  Billard  said,  "Well,  1  suppose  I  won't 
see  you  any  more,  Jim;  good-bye,"  and  went 
away  laughing;  and  after  a  while  one  of  the  men 
saw  Jim  Leonard  hanging  about,  and  asked  him 
what  he  wanted  there  at  that  time  of  night;  and 
Jim  could  not  say  he  wanted  coffee,  and  so  there 
was  nothing  for  him  to  do  but  go.  There  was 
nowhere  for  him  to  go  but  home,  and  he  sneaked 
off  in  the  dark. 

When  he  came  in  sight  of  the  cabin  he  could 
not  tell  whether  he  would  rather  have  his  mother 
waiting  for  him  with  a  whipping  and  some  supper, 
or  get  to  bed  somehow  with  neither.  He  climbed 
softly  over  the  back  fence  and  crept  up  to  the 

27 


BOY   LIFE 

back  door,  but  it  was  fast;  then  he  crept  round 
to  the  front  door,  and  that  was  fast,  too.  There 
was  no  Hght  in  the  house,  and  it  was  perfectly 
still. 

All  of  a  sudden  it  struck  him  that  he  could 
sleep  in  the  stable-loft,  and  he  thought  what  a 
fool  he  was  not  to  have  thought  of  it  before. 
The  notion  brightened  him  up  so  that  he  got 
the  gourd  that  hung  beside  the  well-curb  and  took 
it  out  to  the  stable  with  him;  for  now  he  remem- 
bered that  the  cow  would  be  there,  unless  she  was 
in  somebody's  garden-patch  or  cornfield. 

He  noticed  as  he  walked  down  toward  the 
stable  that  the  freshet  had  come  up  over  the  flat, 
and  just  before  the  door  he  had  to  wade.  But 
he  was  in  his  bare  feet,  and  he  did  not  care;  if 
he  thought  anything,  he  thought  that  his  mother 
would  not  come  out  to  milk  till  the  water  went 
down,  and  he  would  be  safe  till  then  from  the 
whipping  he  must  take,  sooner  or  later,  for  play- 
ing hooky. 

Sure  enough,  the  old  cow  was  in  the  stable, 
and  she  gave  Jim  Leonard  a  snort  of  welcome 
and  then  lowed  anxiously.  He  fumbled  through 
the  dark  to  her  side,  and  began  to  milk  her. 
She  had  been  milked  only  a  few  hours  before, 
and  so  he  got  only  a  gourdful  from  her.  But  it 
was  all  stoppings,  and  rich  as  cream,  and  it  was 
smoking  warm.     It  seemed  to  Jim  Leonard  that 

28 


ADVENTURES    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

it  went  down  to  his  very  toes  when  he  poured 
it  into  his  throat,  and  it  made  him  feel  so  good 
that  he  did  not  know  what  to  do. 

There  really  was  not  anything  for  him  to  do 
but  to  climb  up  into  the  loft  by  the  ladder  in  the 
corner  of  the  stable,  and  lie  down  on  the  old 
last  year's  fodder.  The  rich,  warm  milk  made 
Jim  Leonard  awfully  sleepy,  and  he  dropped  off 
almost  as  soon  as  his  head  touched  the  corn- 
stalks. The  last  thing  he  remembered  was  the 
hoarse  roar  of  the  freshet  outside,  and  that  was 
a  lulling  music  in  his  ears. 

The  next  thing  he  knew,  and  he  hardly  knew 
that,  was  a  soft,  jolting,  sinking  motion,  first  to 
one  side  and  then  to  the  other;  then  he  seemed 
to  be  going  down,  down,  straight  down,  and  then 
to  be  drifting  off"  into  space.  He  rubbed  his  eyes 
and  found  it  was  full  daylight,  although  it  was 
the  daylight  of  early  morning;  and  while  he  lay 
looking  out  of  the  stable-loft  window  and  trying 
to  make  out  what  it  all  meant,  he  felt  a  wash  of 
cold  water  along  his  back,  and  his  bed  of  fodder 
melted  away  under  him  and  around  him,  and 
some  loose  planks  of  the  loft  floor  swam  welter- 
ing out  of  the  window.  Then  he  knew  what 
had  happened.  The  flood  had  stolen  up  while 
he  slept,  and  sapped  the  walls  of  the  stable;  the 
logs  had  given  way,  one  after  another,  and  had 
let  him  down,  with  the  roof,  into  the  water. 

29 


BOY    LIFE 

He  got  to  his  feet  as  well  as  he  could,  and 
floundered  over  the  rising  and  falling  boards  to 
the  window  in  the  floating  gable.  One  look  out- 
side showed  him  his  mother's  log-cabin  safe  on 
its  rise  of  ground,  and  at  the  corner  the  old  cow, 
that  must  have  escaped  through  the  stable  door 
he  had  left  open,  and  passed  the  night  among  the 
cabbages.  She  seemed  to  catch  sight  of  Jim 
Leonard  when  he  put  his  head  out,  and  she  lowed 
to  him. 

Jim  Leonard  did  not  stop  to  make  any  answer. 
He  clambered  out  of  the  window  and  up  onto 
the  ridge  of  the  roof,  and  there,  in  the  company 
of  a  large  gray  rat,  he  set  out  on  the  strangest 
voyage  a  boy  ever  made.  In  a  few  moments  the 
current  swept  him  out  into  the  middle  of  the  river, 
and  he  was  sailing  down  between  his  native  shore 
on  one  side  and  Delorac's  Island  on  the  other. 

All  round  him  seethed  and  swirled  the  yellow 
flood  in  eddies  and  ripples,  where  drift  of  all  sorts 
danced  and  raced.  His  vessel,  such  as  it  was, 
seemed  seaworthy  enough.  It  held  securely  to- 
gether, fitting  like  a  low,  wide  cup  over  the  water, 
and  perhaps  finding  some  buoyancy  from  the  air 
imprisoned  in  it  above  the  window.  Buit  Jim 
Leonard  was  not  satisfied,  and  so  far  from  being 
proud  of  his  adventure,  he  was  frightened  worse 
even  than  the  rat  which  shared  it.  As  soon  as 
he  could  get  his  voice,  he  began  to  shout  for  help 

30 


ADVENTURES    IN    A    BOY'S    TOWN 

to  the  houses  on  the  empty  shores,  which  seemed 
to  fly  backward  on  both  sides  while  he  lay  still 
on  the  gulf  that  swashed  around  him,  and  tried 
to  drown  his  voice  before  it  swallowed  him  up. 
At  the  same  time  the  bridge,  which  had  looked 
so  far  off  when  he  first  saw  it,  was  rushing  swiftly 
toward  him,  and  getting  nearer  and  nearer. 

He  wondered  what  had  become  of  all  the  peo- 
ple and  all  the  boys.  He  thought  that  if  he 
were  safe  there  on  shore  he  should  not  be  sleep- 
ing in  bed  while  somebody  was  out  in  the  river 
on  a  roof,  with  nothing  but  a  rat  to  care  whether 
he  got  drowned  or  not. 

Where  was  Hen  Billard,  that  always  made 
fun  so;  or  Archy  Hawkins,  that  pretended  to 
be  so  good-natured;  or  Pony  Baker,  that  seemed 
to  like  a  fellow  so  much  ?  He  began  to  call  for 
them  by  name:  "Hen  Billard — 0  Hen!  Help, 
help!  Archy  Hawkins — 0  Archy!  I'm  drown- 
ing! Pony,  Pony — O  Pony!  Don't  you  see  me, 
Pony .?" 

He  could  see  the  top  of  Pony  Baker's  house, 
and  he  thought  what  a  good,  kind  man  Pony's 
father  was.  Surely  he  would  try  to  save  him; 
and  Jim  Leonard  began  to  yell:  "O  Mr.  Baker! 
Look  here,  Mr.  Baker!  It's  Jim  Leonard,  and 
I'm  floating  down  the  river  on  a  roof!  Save  me, 
Mr.  Baker,  save  me!  Help,  help,  somebody! 
Fire!     Fire!     Fire!     Murder!     Fire!" 

31 


BOY    LIFE 

By  this  time  he  was  about  crazy,  and  did  not 
half  know  what  he  was  saying.  Just  in  front  of 
where  Hen  Billard's  grandmother  lived,  on  the 
street  that  ran  along  the  top  of  the  bank,  the  roof 
got  caught  in  the  branches  of  a  tree  which  had 
drifted  down  and  stuck  in  the  bottom  of  the  river 
so  that  the  branches  waved  up  and  down  as  the 
current  swashed  through  them.  Jim  Leonard 
was  glad  of  anything  that  would  stop  the  roof, 
and  at  first  he  thought  he  would  get  off  on  the 
tree.  That  was  what  the  rat  did.  Perhaps  the 
rat  thought  Jim  Leonard  really  was  crazy  and 
he  had  better  let  him  have  the  roof  to  himself; 
but  the  rat  saw  that  he  had  made  a  mistake,  and 
he  jumped  back  again  after  he  had  swung  up 
and  down  on  a  limb  two  or  three  times.  Jim 
I/eonard  felt  awfully  when  the  rat  first  got  into 
the  tree,  for  he  remembered  how  it  said  in  the 
Pirate  Book  that  rats  always  leave  a  sinking  ship, 
and  no  he  believed  that  he  certainly  was  gone. 
But  that  only  made  him  hollo  the  louder,  and  he 
holloed  so  loud  that  at  last  he  made  somebody 
hear. 

It  was  Hen  Billard's  grandmother,  and  she 
put  her  head  out  of  the  window  with  her  night- 
cap on,  to  see  what  the  matter  was.  Jim  Leon- 
ard caught  sight  of  her,  and  he  screamed:  "Fire, 
fire,  fire!  I'm  drownding,  Mrs.  Billard!  Oh, 
do  somebody  come!" 

32 


ADVENTURES   IN    A   BOY'S   TOWN 

Hen  Billard's  grandmother  just  gave  one  yell 
of  "Fire!  The  world's  a-burnin'  up,  Hen  Bil- 
lard,  and  you  layin'  there  sleepin'  and  not  helpin' 
a  bit!  Somebody's  out  there  in  the  river!"  and 
she  rushed  into  the  room  where  Hen  was,  and 
shook  him. 

He  bounced  out  of  bed  and  pulled  on  his  panta- 
loons, and  was  down-stairs  in  a  minute.  He  ran 
bareheaded  over  to  the  bank,  and  when  Jim 
Leonard  saw  him  coming  he  holloed  ten  times 
as  loud:  '*It's  me.  Hen!  It's  Jim  Leonard! 
Oh,  do  get  somebody  to  come  out  and  save  me! 
Fire!" 

As  soon  as  Hen  heard  that,  and  felt  sure  it 
was  not  a  dream,  which  he  did  in  about  half  a 
second,  he  began  to  yell,  too,  and  to  say:  "How 
did  you  get  there.?  Fire,  fire,  fire!  What  are 
you  on?  Fire!  Are  you  in  a  tree,  or  what.'' 
Fire,  fire!  Are  you  in  a  flat-boat?  Fire,  fire, 
fire!     If  I  had  a  skiflr— fire!" 

He  kept  racing  up  and  down  the  bank,  and 
back  and  forth  between  the  bank  and  the  houses. 
The  river  was  almost  up  to  the  top  of  the  bank, 
and  it  looked  a  mile  wide.  Down  at  the  bridge 
you  could  hardly  see  any  light  between  the  water 
and  the  bridge. 

Pretty  soon  people  began  to  look  out  of  their 
doors  and  wmdows,  and  Hen  Billard's  grand- 
mother kept  screaming;  "The  world's  a-burnin' 
3  33 


BOY    LIFE 

up!  The  river's  on  fire!"  Then  boys  came  out 
of  their  houses;  and  then  men  with  no  hats  on; 
and  then  women  and  girls,  with  their  hair  half 
down.  The  fire-bells  began  to  ring,  and  in  less 
than  five  minutes  both  the  fire  companies  were 
on  the  shore,  with  the  men  at  the  brakes  and  the 
foremen  of  the  companies  holloing  through  their 
trumpets. 

Then  Jim  Leonard  saw  what  a  good  thing  it 
was  that  he  had  thought  of  holloing  fire.  He 
felt  sure  now  that  they  would  save  him  somehow, 
and  he  made  up  his  mind  to  save  the  rat,  too, 
and  pet  it,  and  maybe  go  around  and  exhibit 
it.  He  would  name  it  Bolivar;  it  was  just  the 
color  of  the  elephant  Bolivar  that  came  to  the 
Boy's  Town  every  year.  These  things  whirled 
through  his  brain  while  he  watched  two  men 
setting  out  in  a  skiff  toward  him. 

They  started  from  the  shore  a  little  above  him, 
and  they  meant  to  row  slanting  across  to  his 
tree,  but  the  current,  when  they  got  fairly  into 
it,  swept  them  far  below,  and  they  were  glad  to 
row  back  to  land  again  without  ever  getting  any- 
where near  him.  At  the  same  time,  the  tree-top 
where  his  roof  was  caught  was  pulled  southward 
by  a  sudden  rush  of  the  torrent;  it  opened,  and 
the  roof  slipped  out,  with  Jim  Leonard  and  the 
I  at  on  it.  They  both  joined  in  one  squeal  of 
despair  as  the  river  leaped  forward  with  them, 

34 


ADVENTURES    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

and  a  dreadful  "Oh!"  went  up  from  the  people 
on  the  bank. 

Some  of  the  firemen  had  run  down  to  the 
bridge  when  they  saw  that  the  skiff  was  not  going 
to  be  of  any  use,  and  one  of  them  had  got  out  of 
the  window  of  the  bridge  onto  the  middle  pier, 
with  a  long  pole  in  his  hand.  It  had  an  iron  hook 
at  the  end,  and  it  was  the  kind  of  pole  that  the 
men  used  to  catch  driftwood  with  and  drag  it 
ashore.  When  the  people  saw  Blue  Bob  with 
that  pole  in  his  hand,  they  understood  what  he 
was  up  to.  He  was  going  to  wait  till  the  water 
brought  the  roof  with  Jim  Leonard  on  it  down  to 
the  bridge,  and  then  catch  the  hook  into  the  shingles 
and  pull  it  up  to  the  pier.  The  strongest  current 
set  close  in  around  the  middle  pier,  and  the  roof 
would  have  to  pass  on  one  side  or  the  other. 
That  was  what  Blue  Bob  argued  out  in  his  mind 
when  he  decided  that  the  skiff  would  never  reach 
Jim  Leonard,  and  he  knew  that  if  he  could  not 
save  him  that  way,  nothing  could  save  him. 

Blue  Bob  must  have  had  a  last  name,  but  none 
of  the  little  fellows  knew  what  it  was.  Every- 
body called  him  Blue  Bob  because  he  had  such  a 
thick,  black  beard  that  when  he  was  just  shaved 
his  face  looked  perfectly  blue.  He  knew  all  about 
the  river  and  its  ways,  and  if  it  had  been  of  any 
use  to  go  out  with  a  boat,  he  would  have  gone. 
That  was  what  all  the  boys  said,  when  they  fol- 

35 


BOY    LIFE 

lowed  Blue  Bob  to  the  bridge  and  saw  him  getting 
out  on  the  pier.  He  was  the  only  person  that  the 
watchman  had  let  go  on  the  bridge  for  two  days. 

The  water  was  up  within  three  feet  of  the  floor, 
and  if  Jim  Leonard's  roof  slipped  by  Blue  Bob's 
guard  and  passed  under  the  bridge,  it  would 
scrape  Jim  Leonard  off,  and  that  would  be  the 
last  of  him. 

All  the  time  the  roof  was  coming  nearer  the 
bridge,  sometimes  slower,  sometimes  faster,  just 
as  it  got  into  an  eddy  or  into  the  current;  once  it 
seemed  almost  to  stop,  and  swayed  completely 
round;    then  it  just  darted  forward. 

Blue  Bob  stood  on  the  very  point  of  the  pier, 
where  the  strong  stone-work  divided  the  current, 
and  held  his  hooked  pole  ready  to  make  a  clutch 
at  the  roof,  whichever  side  it  took.  Jim  Leonard 
saw  him  there,  but  although  he  had  been  holloing 
and  yelling  and  crying  all  the  time,  now  he  was 
still.  He  wanted  to  say,  *'0  Bob,  save  me!"  but 
he  could  not  make  a  sound. 

It  seemed  to  him  that  Bob  was  going  to  miss 
him  when  he  made  a  lunge  at  the  roof  on  the  right 
side  of  the  pier;  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  roof 
was  going  down  the  left  side;  but  he  felt  ii  quiver 
and  stop,  and  then  it  gave  a  loud  crack  and  went 
to  pieces,  and  flung  itself  away  upon  the  whirling 
and  dancing  flood.  At  first  lim  Leonard  thought 
he  had  gone  with  it;   but  it  was  only  the  rat  that 

.36 


ADVENTURES   IN   A   BOY'S   TO>37N 

tried  to  run  up  Blue  Bob's  pole,  and  slipped  ofF 
into  the  water;  and  then  somehow  Jim  was  hang- 
ing onto  Blue  Bob's  hands  and  scrambling  onto 
the  bridge. 

Blue  Bob  always  said  he  never  saw  any  rat, 
and  a  good  many  people  said  there  never  was 
any  rat  on  the  roof  with  Jim  Leonard;  they  said 
that  he  just  made  the  rat  up. 

He  did  not  mention  the  rat  himself  for  several 
days;  he  told  Pony  Baker  that  he  did  not  think 
of  it  at  first,  he  was  so  excited. 

Pony  asked  his  father  what  he  thought,  and 
Pony's  father  said  that  it  might  have  been  the 
kind  of  rat  that  people  see  when  they  have  been 
drinking  too  much,  and  that  Blue  Bob  had  not 
seen  it  because  he  had  signed  the  temperance 
pledge. 

But  this  was  a  good  while  after.  At  the  time 
the  people  saw  Jim  Leonard  standing  safe  with 
Blue  Bob  on  the  pier,  they  set  up  a  regular  election 
cheer,  and  they  would  have  believed  anything  Jim 
Leonard  said.  They  all  agreed  that  Blue  Bob 
had  a  right  to  go  home  with  Jim  and  take  him  to 
his  mother,  for  he  had  saved  Jim's  life,  and  he 
ought  to  have  the  credit  of  it. 

Before  this,  and  while  everybody  supposed  that 
Jim  Leonard  would  surely  be  drowned,  some  of 
the  people  had  gone  up  to  his  mother's  cabin  to 
prepare  her  for  the  worst.     She  did  not  seem  to 

37 


BOY   LIFE 

understand  exactly,  and  she  kept  round  getting 
breakfast,  with  her  old  clay  pipe  in  her  mouth; 
but  when  she  got  it  through  her  head,  she  made 
an  awful  face,  and  dropped  her  pipe  on  the  door- 
stone  and  broke  it;  and  then  she  threw  her  check 
apron  over  her  head  and  sat  down  and  cried. 

But  it  took  so  long  for  her  to  come  to  this  that 
the  people  had  not  got  over  comforting  her  and 
trying  to  make  her  believe  that  it  was  all  for  the 
best,  when  Blue  Bob  came  up  through  the  bars 
with  his  hand  on  Jim's  shoulder,  and  about  all 
the  boys  in  town  tagging  after  them. 

Jim's  mother  heard  the  hurrahing  and  pulled 
off  her  apron,  and  saw  that  Jim  was  safe  and 
sound  there  before  her.  She  gave  him  a  look 
that  made  him  slip  round  behind  Blue  Bob,  and 
she  went  in  and  got  a  table-knife,  and  she  came 
out  and  went  to  the  pear-tree  and  cut  a  sucker. 

She  said,  "I'll  learn  that  limb  to  sleep  in  a 
cow-barn  when  he's  got  a  decent  bed  in  the 
house!"  and  then  she  started  to  come  toward  Jim 
Leonard. 


II 

LIFE    IN    A    BOY'S    TOWN 


THE    TOWN 

T  CALL  it  a  Boy's  Town  because  I  wish  it  to 
■*•  appear  to  the  reader  as  a  town  appears  to  a 
boy  from  his  third  to  his  eleventh  year,  when  he 
seldom,  if  ever,  catches  a  glimpse  of  life  much 
higher  than  the  middle  of  a  man,  and  has  the 
most  distorted  and  mistaken  views  of  most 
things.  .  .  .  Some  people  remain  in  this  condi- 
tion as  long  as  they  live,  and  keep  the  ignorance 
of  childhood,  after  they  have  lost  its  innocence; 
heaven  has  been  shut,  but  the  earth  is  still  a 
prison  to  them.  These  will  not  know  what  I 
mean  by  much  that  I  shall  have  to  say;  but  I 
hope  that  the  ungrown-up  children  will,  and  that 
the  boys  of  to-day  will  like  to  know  what  a  boy 
of  forty  years  ago  was  like,  even  if  he  had  no 
very  exciting  adventures  or  thread-bare  escapes; 
perhaps  I  mean  hair-breadth  escapes;  but  it  is 
the  same  thing — they  have  been  used  so  often. 
I  shall  try  to  describe  him  very  minutely  in  his 
daily  doings  and  dreamings,  and  it  may  amuse 

41 


BOY   LIFE 

them  to  compare  these  doings  and  dreamings 
with  their  own.  For  convenience,  I  shall  call 
this  boy,  my  boy;  but  I  hope  he  might  have  been 
almost  anybody's  boy;  and  I  mean  him  some- 
times for  a  boy  in  general,  as  well  as  a  boy  in 
particular. 

It  seems  to  me  that  my  Boy's  Town  was  a 
town  peculiarly  adapted  for  a  boy  to  be  a  boy 
in.  It  had  a  river,  the  great  Miami  River,  which 
was  as  blue  as  the  sky  when  it  was  not  as  yellow 
as  gold;  and  it  had  another  river,  called  the  Old 
River,  which  was  the  Miami's  former  channel, 
and  which  held  an  island  in  its  sluggish  loop; 
the  boys  called  it  The  Island;  and  it  must  have 
been  about  the  size  of  Australia;  perhaps  it  was 
not  so  large.  Then  this  town  had  a  Canal,  and 
a  Canal-Basin,  and  a  First  Lock  and  a  Second 
Lock;  you  could  walk  out  to  the  First  Lock, 
but  the  Second  Lock  was  at  the  edge  of  the 
known  world,  and,  when  my  boy  was  very  lit- 
tle, the  biggest  boy  had  never  been  beyond  it. 
Then  it  had  a  Hydraulic,  which  brought  the 
waters  of  Old  River  for  mill-power  through  the 
heart  of  the  town,  from  a  Big  Reservoir  and  a 
Little  Reservoir;  the  Big  Reservoir  was  as  far 
off  as  the  Second  Lock,  and  the  Hydraulic  ran 
under  mysterious  culverts  at  every  street-cross- 
ing. All  these  streams  and  courses  had  fish  in 
them  at  all  seasons,   and   all  summer  long  they 

42 


THE    FIRST    LOCK 


LIFE    IN    A    BOY'S    TOWN 

had  boys  in  them,  and  now  and  then  a  boy  in 
winter,  when  the  thin  ice  of  the  mild  Southern 
Ohio  winter  let  him  through  with  his  skates. 
Then  there  were  the  Commons:  a  wide  expanse 
of  open  fields,  where  the  cows  were  pastured, 
and  the  boys  flew  their  kites,  and  ran  races,  and 
practised  for  their  circuses  in  the  tan-bark  rings 
of  the  real  circuses. 


EARLIEST   MEMORIES 

Some  of  my  boy's  memories  reach  a  time  earlier 
than  his  third  year,  and  relate  to  the  little  Ohio 
River  hamlet  where  he  was  born,  and  where  his 
mother's  people,  who  were  river-faring  folk,  all 
lived.  Every  two  or  three  years  the  river  rose 
and  flooded  the  village;  and  his  grandmother's 
household  was  taken  out  of  the  second-story  win- 
dow in  a  skiff;  but  no  one  minded  a  trivial  in- 
convenience like  that,  any  more  than  the  Romans 
have  minded  the  annual  freshet  of  the  Tiber  for 
the  last  three  or  four  thousand  years.  When  the 
waters  went  down  the  family  returned  and  scrub- 
bed out  the  five  or  six  inches  of  rich  mud  they 
had  left.  In  the  mean  time  it  was  a  godsend  to 
all  boys  of  an  age  to  enjoy  it;  but  it  was  nothing 
out  of  the  order  of  Providence.  So,  if  my  boy 
ever  saw  a  freshet,  it  naturally  made  no  impres- 

45 


BOY   LIFE 

sion  upon  him.  What  he  remembered  was  some- 
thing much  more  important,  and  that  was  wak- 
ing up  one  morning  and  seeing  a  peach-tree  in 
bloom  through  the  window  beside  his  bed;  and 
he  was  always  glad  that  this  vision  of  beauty 
was  his  very  earliest  memory.  All  his  life  he 
has  never  seen  a  peach-tree  in  bloom  without  a 
swelling  of  the  heart,  without  some  fleeting 
sense  that 

"  Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy." 

Over  the  spot  where  the  little  house  once 
stood  a  railroad  has  drawn  its  erasing  lines,  and 
the  house  itself  was  long  since  taken  down  and 
built  up  brick  by  brick  in  quite  another  place; 
but  the  blooming  peach-tree  glows  before  his 
childish  eyes  untouched  by  time  or  change.  The 
tender,  pathetic  pink  of  its  flowers  repeated  it- 
self many  long  years  afterward  in  the  paler  tints 
of  the  almond  blossoms  in  Italy,  but  always 
with  a  reminiscence  of  that  dim  past,  and  the 
little  coal-smoky  town  on  the  banks  of  the 
Ohio. 

Perversely  blended  with  that  vision  of  the  bloom- 
ing peach  is  a  glimpse  of  a  pet  deer  in  the  kitchen 
of  the  same  little  house,  with  its  head  up  and  its 
antlers  erect,  as  if  he  meditated  offence.  My  boy 
might  never  have  seen  him  so;  he  may  have  had 

46 


LIFE    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

the  vision  at  second  hand;  but  it  is  certain  that 
there  was  a  pet  deer  in  the  family,  and  that  he  was 
as  likely  to  have  come  into  the  kitchen  by  the 
window  as  by  the  door.  One  of  the  boy's  uncles 
had  seen  this  deer  swimming  the  Mississippi,  far 
to  the  southward,  and  had  sent  out  a  yawl  and 
captured  him,  and  brought  him  home.  He  began 
a  checkered  career  of  uselessness  when  they  were 
ferrying  him  over  from  Wheeling  in  a  skiff,  by 
trying  to  help  wear  the  pantaloons  of  the  boy  who 
was  holding  him;  he  put  one  of  his  fore-legs  in  at 
the  watch-pocket;  but  it  was  disagreeable  to  the 
boy  and  ruinous  to  the  trousers.  He  grew  very 
tame,  and  butted  children  over,  right  and  left,  in 
the  village  streets;  and  he  behaved  like  one  of  the 
family  whenever  he  got  into  a  house;  he  ate  the 
sugar  out  of  the  bowl  on  the  table,  and  plundered 
the  pantry  of  its  sweet  cakes.  One  day  a  dog 
got  after  him,  and  he  jumped  over  the  river-bank 
and  broke  his  leg,  and  had  to  be  shot. 


HOME   LIFE 

The  house  gave  even  to  him  a  sense  of  space 
unknown  before,  and  he  could  recall  his  mother's 
satisfaction  in  it.  He  has  often  been  back  there  in 
dreams,  and  found  it  on  the  old  scale  of  grandeur; 
but  no  doubt  it  was  a  very  simple  affair.     The 

47 


BOY   LIFE 

fortunes  of  a  Whig  editor  in  a  place  so  overwhelm- 
ingly Democratic  as  the  Boy's  Town  were  not  such 
as  could  have  warranted  his  living  in  a  palace; 
and  he  must  have  been  poor,  as  the  world  goes 
now.  But  the  family  always  lived  in  abundance, 
and  in  their  way  they  belonged  to  the  employing 
class;  that  is,  the  father  had  men  to  work  for  him. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  worked  with  them;  and 
the  boys,  as  they  grew  old  enough,  were  taught 
to  work  with  them,  too.  My  boy  grew  old  enough 
very  young;  and  was  put  to  use  in  the  printing- 
office  before  he  was  ten  years  of  age.  This  was 
not  altogether  because  he  was  needed  there,  I 
dare  say,  but  because  it  was  part  of  his  father's 
Swedenborgian  philosophy  that  every  one  should 
fulfil  a  use;  I  do  not  know  that  when  the  boy 
wanted  to  go  swimming,  or  hunting,  or  skating, 
it  consoled  him  much  to  reflect  that  the  angels  in 
the  highest  heaven  delighted  in  uses;  neverthe- 
less, it  was  good  for  him  to  be  of  use,  though 
maybe  not  so  much  use. 

If  his  mother  did  her  own  work,  with  help  only 
now  and  then  from  a  hired  girl,  that  was  the 
custom  of  the  time  and  country;  and  her  memory 
was  always  the  more  reverend  to  him,  because 
whenever  he  looked  back  at  her  in  those  dim 
years,  he  saw  her  about  some  of  those  household 
offices  which  are  so  beautiful  to  a  child.  She 
was  always  the  best  and  tenderest  mother,  and 

48 


LIFE    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

her  love  had  the  heavenly  art  of  making  each 
child  feel  itself  the  most  important,  while  she  was 
partial  to  none.  In  spite  of  her  busy  days  she 
followed  their  father  in  his  religion  and  literature, 
and  at  night,  when  her  long  toil  was  over,  she  sat 
with  the  children  and  listened  while  he  read  aloud. 
The  first  book  my  boy  remembered  to  have 
heard  him  read  was  Moore's  Lalla  Rookh,  of 
which  he  formed  but  a  vague  notion,  though 
while  he  struggled  after  its  meaning  he  took  all 
its  music  in,  and  began  at  once  to  make  rhymes 
of  his  own.  He  had  no  conception  of  literature 
except  the  pleasure  there  was  in  making  it;  and 
he  had  no  outlook  into  the  world  of  it,  which 
must  have  been  pretty  open  to  his  father.  The 
father  read  aloud  some  of  Dickens'  Christmas 
stories,  then  new;  and  the  boy  had  a  good  deal 
of  trouble  with  the  Haunted  Man.  One  rarest 
night  of  all,  the  family  sat  up  till  two  o'clock, 
listening  to  a  novel  that  my  boy  long  ago  forgot 
the  name  of,  if  he  ever  knew  its  name.  It  was 
all  about  a  will,  forged  or  lost,  and  there  was  a 
great  scene  in  court,  and  after  that  the  mother 
declared  that  she  could  not  go  to  bed  till  she 
heard  the  end.  His  own  first  reading  was  in 
history.  At  nine  years  of  age  he  read  the  his- 
tory of  Greece,  and  the  history  of  Rome,  and  he 
knew  that  Goldsmith  wrote  them.  One  night 
his  father  told  the  boys  all  about  Don  Quixote; 
4  49 


BOY   LIFE 

and  a  little  while  after  he  gave  my  boy  the  book. 
He  read  it  over  and  over  again;  but  he  did  not 
suppose  it  was  a  novel.  It  was  his  elder  brother 
who  read  novels,  and  a  novel  was  like  Handy 
Andyy  or  Harry  Lorrequer,  or  the  Bride  of  Lam- 
mermoor.  His  brother  had  another  novel  which 
they  preferred  to  either;  it  was  in  Harper's  old 
"Library  of  Select  Novels,"  and  was  called 
Alamance;  or^  the  Great  and  Final  Experimenty 
and  it  was  about  the  life  of  some  sort  of  com- 
munity in  North  Carolina.  It  bewitched  them, 
and  though  my  boy  could  not  afterward  recall  a 
single  fact  or  figure  in  it,  he  could  bring  before 
his  mind's  eye  every  trait  of  its  outward  aspect. 
All  this  went  along  with  great  and  continued 
political  excitement,  and  with  some  glimpses  of 
the  social  problem.  It  was  very  simple  then; 
nobody  was  very  rich,  and  nobody  was  in  want; 
but  somehow,  as  the  boy  grew  older,  he  began 
to  discover  that  there  were  diflFerences,  even  in 
the  little  world  about  him;  some  were  higher 
and  some  were  lower.  From  the  first  he  was 
taught  by  precept  and  example  to  take  the  side 
of  the  lower.  As  the  children  were  denied 
oftener  than  they  were  indulged,  the  margin  of 
their  own  abundance  must  have  been  narrower 
than  they  ever  knew  then;  but  if  they  had  been 
of  the  most  prosperous,  their  bent  in  this  matter 
would  have  been  the  same.     Once  there  was  a 

50 


LIFE    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

church  festival,  or  something  of  that  sort,  and 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  the  provision  left  over, 
which  it  was  decided  should  be  given  to  the  poor. 
This  was  very  easy,  but  it  was  not  so  easy  to  find 
the  poor  whom  it  should  be  given  to.  At  last  a 
hard-working  widow  was  chosen  to  receive  it; 
the  ladies  carried  it  to  her  front  door  and  gave  it 
her,  and  she  carried  it  to  her  back  door  and 
threw  it  into  the  alley.  No  doubt  she  had  enough 
without  it,  but  there  were  circumstances  of  in- 
dignity or  patronage  attending  the  gift  which 
were  recognized  in  my  boy's  home,  and  which 
helped  afterward  to  make  him  doubtful  of  all 
giving,  except  the  humblest,  and  restive  with  a 
world  in  which  there  need  be  any  giving  at  all. 


THE   RIVER 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  best  way  to  get  at  the 
heart  of  any  boy's  town  is  to  take  its  different 
watercourses  and  follow  them  into  it. 

The  house  where  my  boy  first  lived  was  not 
far"  from  the  river,  and  he  must  have  seen  it  often 
before  he  noticed  it.  But  he  was  not  aware  of  it 
till  he  found  it  under  the  bridge.  Without  the 
river  there  could  not  have  been  a  bridge;  the 
fact  of  the  bridge  may  have  made  him  look  for 
the  river;  but  the  bridge  is  foremost  in  his  mind. 
4  51 


BOY   LIFE 

It  is  a  long,  wooden  tunnel,  with  two  roadways, 
and  a  foot-path  on  either  side  of  these;  there  is 
a  toll-house  at  each  end,  and  from  one  to  the 
other  it  is  about  as  far  as  from  the  Earth  to  the 
planet  Mars.  On  the  western  shore  of  the  river 
is  a  smaller  town  than  the  Boy's  Town,  and  in 
the  perspective  the  entrance  of  the  bridge  on  that 
side  is  like  a  dim  little  doorway.  The  timbers 
are  of  a  hugeness  to  strike  fear  into  the  heart  of 
the  boldest  little  boy;  and  there  is  something 
awful  even  about  the  dust  in  the  roadways;  soft 
and  thrillingly  cool  to  the  boy's  bare  feet,  it  lies 
thick  in  a  perpetual  twilight,  streaked  at  intervals 
by  the  sun  that  slants  in  at  the  high,  narrow  win- 
dows under  the  roof;  it  has  a  certain  potent, 
musty  smell.  The  bridge  has  three  piers,  and  at 
low  water  hardier  adventurers  than  he  wade  out 
to  the  middle  pier;  some  heroes  even  fish  there, 
standing  all  day  on  the  loose  rocks  about  the 
base  of  the  pier.  He  shudders  to  see  them,  and 
aches  with  wonder  how  they  will  get  ashore. 
Once  he  is  there  when  a  big  boy  wades  back 
from  the  middle  pier,  where  he  has  been  to  rob 
a  goose's  nest;  he  has  some  loose  silver  change 
in  his  wet  hand,  and  my  boy  understands  that  it 
has  come  out  of  one  of  the  goose  eggs.  This  fact, 
which  he  never  thought  of  questioning,  gets  mixed 
up  in  his  mind  with  an  idea  of  riches,  of 
treasure-trove,    in    the    cellar    of   an    old    house 

52 


LIFE    IN    A   BOY'S   TOWN 

that  has  been  torn  down  near  the  end  of  the 
bridge. 

The  river  had  its  own  climate,  and  this  dimate 
was  of  course  much  such  a  cHmate  as  the  boys, 
for  whom  nature  intended  the  river,  would  have 
chosen.  1  do  not  believe  it  was  ever  winter  there, 
though  it  was  sometimes  late  autumn,  so  that  the 
boys  could  have  some  use  for  the  caves  they  dug 
at  the  top  of  the  bank,  with  a  hole  coming  through 
the  turf,  to  let  out  the  smoke  of  the  fires  they 
built  inside.  They  had  the  joy  of  choking  and 
blackening  over  these  flues,  and  they  intended  to 
live  on  corn  and  potatoes  borrowed  from  the 
household  stores  of  the  boy  whose  house  was 
nearest.  They  never  got  so  far  as  to  parch  the 
corn  or  to  bake  the  potatoes  in  their  caves,  but 
there  was  the  fire,  and  the  draught  was  magnificent. 
The  light  of  the  red  flames  painted  the  little, 
happy,  foolish  faces,  so  long  since  wrinkled  and 
grizzled  with  age,  or  mouldered  away  to  dust,  as 
the  boys  huddled  before  them  under  the  bank, 
and  fed  them  with  the  drift,  or  stood  patient  of 
the  heat  and  cold  in  the  afternoon  light  of  some 
vast  Saturday  waning  to  nightfall. 

The  river-climate,  with  these  autumnal  intervals, 
was  made  up  of  a  quick,  eventful  springtime, 
followed  by  the  calm  of  a  cloudless  summer  that 
seemed  never  to  end.  But  the  spring,  short  as  it 
was,  had  its  great  attractions,  and  chief  of  these 

53 


BOY   LIFE 

was  the  freshet  which  it  brought  to  the  river. 
They  would  hear  somehow  that  the  river  was  ris- 
ing, and  then  the  boys,  who  had  never  connected 
its  rise  with  the  rains  they  must  have  been  having, 
would  all  go  down  to  its  banks  and  watch  the 
swelling  waters.  These  would  be  yellow  and 
thick,  and  the  boiling  current  would  have  smooth, 
oily  eddies,  where  pieces  of  drift  would  whirl 
round  and  round,  and  then  escape  and  slip  down 
the  stream.  There  were  saw-logs  and  whole  trees 
with  their  branching  tops,  lengths  of  fence  and 
hen-coops  and  pig-pens;  once  there  was  a  stable; 
and  if  the  flood  continued,  there  began  to  come 
swollen  bodies  of  horses  and  cattle.  This  must 
have  meant  serious  loss  to  the  people  living  on 
the  river-bottoms  above,  but  the  boys  counted  it 
all  gain.  They  cheered  the  objects  as  they  floated 
by,  and  they  were  breathless  with  the  excitement 
of  seeing  the  men  who  caught  fence-rails  and  cord- 
wood,  and  even  saw-logs,  with  iron  prongs  at  the 
points  of  long  poles,  as  they  stood  on  some  jutting 
point  of  shore  and  stretched  far  out  over  the 
flood.  The  boys  exulted  in  the  turbid  spread  of 
the  stream,  which  filled  its  low  western  banks 
and  stole  over  their  tops,  and  washed  into  all  the 
hollow  places  along  its  shores,  and  shone  among 
the  trunks  of  the  sycamores  on  Delorac's  Island, 
which  was  almost  of  the  geographical  importance 
of  The  Island  in  Old   River.     When  the  water 

54 


LIFE    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

began  to  go  down  their  hearts  sank  with  it;  and 
they  gave  up  the  hope  of  seeing  the  bridge  carried 
away.  Once  the  river  rose  to  within  a  few  feet 
of  it,  so  that  if  the  right  piece  of  drift  had  been 
there  to  do  its  duty,  the  bridge  might  have  been 
torn  from  its  piers  and  swept  down  the  raging 
tide  into  those  unknown  gulfs  to  the  southward. 
Many  a  time  they  went  to  bed  full  of  hope  that 
it  would  at  least  happen  in  the  night,  and  woke 
to  learn  with  shame  and  grief  in  the  morning 
that  the  bridge  was  still  there,  and  the  river  was 
falling.  It  was  a  little  comfort  to  know  that  some 
of  the  big  boys  had  almost  seen  it  go,  watching  as 
far  into  the  night  as  nine  o'clock  with  the  men 
who  sat  up  near  the  bridge  till  daylight:  men  of 
leisure  and  public  spirit,  but  not  perhaps  the  lead- 
ing citizens. 

SWIMMING 

There  must  have  been  a  tedious  time  between 
the  going  down  of  the  flood  and  the  first  days 
when  the  water  was  warm  enough  for  swimming; 
but  it  left  no  trace.  The  boys  are  standing  on  the 
shore  while  the  freshet  rushes  by,  and  then  they 
are  in  the  water,  splashing,  diving,  ducking;  it  is 
like  that;  so  that  I  do  not  know  just  how  to  get  in 
that  period  of  fishing  which  must  always  have 
come  between.     There  were  not  many  fish  in  that 

55 


BOY   LIFE 


part  of  the  Miami;  my  boy*s  experience  was  full  of 
the  ignominy  of  catching  shiners  and  suckers,  or, 
at  the  best,  mudcats,  as  they  called  the  yellow 
catfish;  but  there  were  boys,  of  those  who  cursed 
and  swore,  who  caught  sunfish,  as  they  called  the 
bream;    and  there  were  men  who  were  reputed  to 

catch  at  will,  as  it  were, 
silvercats  and  river- 
bass.  They  fished  with 
minnows,  which  they  kept 
in  battered  tin  buckets 
that  they  did  not  allow 
you  even  to  touch,  or 
hardly  to  look  at;  my 
boy  scarcely  breathed  in 
their  presence;  when  one 
2     "s^  of  them   got  up  to  cast 

his  line  in  a  new  place, 
the  boys  all  ran,  and  then  came  slowly  back. 
These  men  often  carried  a  flask  of  liquid  that  had 
the  property,  when  taken  inwardly,  of  keeping 
the  damp  out.  The  boys  respected  them  for  their 
ability  to  drink  whiskey,  and  thought  it  a  fit  and 
honorable  thing  that  they  should  now  and  then 
fall  into  the  river  over  the  brinks  where  they  had 
set  their  poles.  But  they  disappear  like  persons  in 
a  dream,  and  their  fishing-time  vanishes  with  them, 
and  the  swimming-time  is  in  full  possession  of  the 
river,  and  of  all  the  other  waters  of  the  Boy's  Town. 

56 


LIFE    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

The  swimming  -  holes  in  the  river  were  the 
greatest  favorites.  My  boy  could  not  remember 
when  he  began  to  go  into  them,  though  it 
certainly  was  before  he  could  swim.  There  was 
a  time  when  he  was  afraid  of  getting  in  over  his 
head;  but  he  did  not  know  just  when  he  learned 
to  swim,  any  more  than  he  knew  when  he  learned 
to  read;  he  could  not  swim,  and  then  he  could 
swim;  he  could  not  read,  and  then  he  could  read; 
but  I  dare  say  the  reading  came  somewhat  before 
the  swimming.  Yet  the  swimming  must  have 
come  very  early,  and  certainly  it  was  kept  up  with 
continual  practise;  he  swam  quite  as  much  as  he 
read;  perhaps  more.  The  boys  had  deep  swim- 
ming-holes and  shallow  ones;  and  over  the  deep 
ones  there  was  always  a  spring-board,  from  which 
they  threw  somersaults,  or  dived  straight  down 
into  the  depths,  where  there  were  warm  and  cold 
currents  mysteriously  interwoven.  They  believed 
that  these  deep  holes  were  infested  by  water- 
snakes,  though  they  never  saw  any,  and  they  ex- 
pected to  be  bitten  by  snapping-turtles,  though 
this  never  happened.  Fiery  dragons  could  not 
have  kept  them  out;  gallynippers,  whatever  they 
were,  certainly  did  not;  they  were  believed  to 
abound  at  the  bottom  of  the  deep  holes;  but  the 
boys  never  stayed  long  in  the  deep  holes,  and 
they  preferred  the  shallow  places,  where  the  river 
broke  into  a  long  ripple  (they  called  it  riffle)  on 

57 


BOY   LIFE 

its  gravelly  bed,  and  where  they  could  at  once 
soak  and  bask  In  the  musical  rush  of  the  sunlit 
waters.  I  have  heard  people  in  New  England 
blame  all  the  Western  rivers  for  being  yellow  and 
turbid;  but  I  know  that  after  the  spring  floods, 
when  the  Miami  had  settled  down  to  its  summer 
business  with  the  boys,  it  was  as  clear  and  as  blue  as 
if  it  were  spilled  out  of  the  summer  sky.  The  boys 
liked  the  riffle  because  they  could  stay  in  so  long 
there,  and  there  were  little  land-locked  pools  and 
shallows,  where  the  water  was  even  warmer,  and 
they  could  stay  in  longer.  At  most  places  under 
the  banks  there  was  clay  of  different  colors,  which 
they  used  for  war-paint  in  their  Indian  fights; 
and  after  they  had  their  Indian  fights  they  could 
rush  screaming  and  clattering  into  the  riffle. 
When  the  stream  had  washed  them  clean  down 
to  their  red  sunburn  or  their  leathern  tan,  they 
could  paint  up  again  and  have  more  Indian  fights. 
I  wonder  what  sign  the  boys  who  read  this 
have  for  challenging  or  inviting  one  another  to 
go  in  swimming.  The  boys  in  the  Boy's  Town 
used  to  make  the  motion  of  swimming  with  both 
arms;  or  they  held  up  the  forefinger  and  middle- 
finger  in  the  form  of  a  swallow-tail;  they  did 
this  when  it  was  necessary  to  be  secret  about  it, 
as  in  school,  and  when  they  did  not  want  the 
whole  crowd  of  boys  to  come  along;  and  often 
when  they  just  pretended  they  did  not  want  some 

58 


LIFE    IN    A    BOY'S    TOWN 

one  to  know.  They  really  had  to  be  secret  at 
times,  for  some  of  the  boys  were  not  allowed  to 
go  in  at  all;  others  were  forbidden  to  go  in  more 
than  once  or  twice  a  day;  and  as  they  all  had 
to  go  in  at  least  three  or  four  times  a  day,  some 
sort  of  sign  had  to  be  used  that  was  understood 
among  themselves  alone.  Since  this  is  a  true 
history,  I  had  better  own  that  they  nearly  all,  at 
one  time  or  other,  must  have  told  lies  about  it, 
either  before  or  after  the  fact,  some  habitually, 
some  only  in  great  extremity.  Here  and  there  a 
boy,  like  my  boy's  elder  brother,  would  not  tell 
lies  at  all,  even  about  going  in  swimming;  but 
by  far  the  greater  number  bowed  to  their  hard 
fate,  and  told  them.  They  promised  that  they 
would  not  go  in,  and  then  they  said  that  they 
had  not  been  in;  but  Sin,  for  which  they  had 
made  this  sacrifice,  was  apt  to  betray  them. 
Either  they  got  their  shirts  on  wrong  side  out  in 
dressing,  or  else,  while  they  were  in,  some  enemy 
came  upon  them  and  tied  their  shirts.  There  are 
few  cruelties  which  public  opinion  in  the  boy's 
world  condemns,  but  I  am  glad  to  remember,  to 
their  honor,  that  there  were  not  many  in  that 
Boy's  Town  who  would  tie  shirts;  and  I  fervent- 
ly hope  that  there  is  no  boy  now  living  who  would 
do  it.  As  the  crime  is  probably  extinct,  I  will  say 
that  in  those  wicked  days,  if  you  were  such  a 
miscreant,   and  there  was  some  boy  you  hated, 

59 


BOY   LIFE 

you  stole  up  and  tied  the  hardest  kind  of  a  knot 
in  one  arm  or  both  arms  of  his  shirt.  Then,  if 
the  Evil  One  put  it  into  your  heart,  you  soaked 
the  knot  in  water,  and  pounded  it  with  a  stone. 

I  am  glad  to  know  that  in  the  days  when  he 
was  thoughtless  and  senseless  enough,  my  boy 
never  was  guilty  of  any  degree  of  this  meanness. 
It  was  his  brother,  I  suppose,  who  taught  him  to 
abhor  it;  and  perhaps  it  was  his  own  suffering 
from  it  in  part;  for  he,  too,  sometimes  shed  bitter 
tears  over  such  a  knot,  as  I  have  seen  hapless 
little  wretches  do,  tearing  at  it  with  their  nails 
and  gnawing  at  it  with  their  teeth,  knowing  that 
the  time  was  passing  when  they  could  hope  to 
hide  the  fact  that  they  had  been  in  swimming, 
and  foreseeing  no  remedy  but  to  cut  off  the  sleeve 
above  the  knot,  or  else  put  on  their  clothes  with- 
out the  shirt,  and  trust  to  untying  the  knot  when 
it  got  dry. 

There  must  nave  been  a  lurking  anxiety  in  all 
the  boys'  hearts  when  they  went  in  without  leave, 
or,  as  my  boy  was  apt  to  do,  when  explicitly  for- 
bidden. He  was  not  apt  at  lying,  I  dare  say, 
and  so  he  took  the  course  of  open  disobedience. 
He  could  not  see  the  danger  that  filled  the  home 
hearts  with  fear  for  him,  and  he  must  have  often 
broken  the  law  and  been  forgiven,  before  Justice 
one  day  appeared  for  him  on  the  river-bank  and 
called   him   away   from   his   stolen   joys.     It  was 

60 


LIFE    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

an  awful  moment,  and  it  covered  him  with  shame 
before  his  mates,  who  heartlessly  rejoiced,  as  chil- 
dren do,  in  the  doom  which  they  are  escaping. 
That  sin,  at  least,  he  fully  expiated;  and  I  will 
whisper  to  the  young  people  here  at  the  end  of 
the  chapter  that  somehow,  soon  or  late,  our  sins 
do  overtake  us,  and  insist  upon  being  paid  for. 
That  is  not  the  best  reason  for  not  sinning,  but 
it  is  well  to  know  it,  and  to  believe  it  in  our  acts 
as  well  as  our  thoughts.  You  will  find  people  to 
tell  you  that  things  only  happen  so  and  so.  It 
may  be;  only,  I  know  that  no  good  thing  ever 
happened  to  happen  to  me  when  I  had  done 
wrong. 

SKATING 

I  am  afraid  that  the  young  people  will  think 
I  am  telling  them  too  much  about  swimming. 
But  in  the  Boy's  Town  the  boys  really  led  a  kind 
of  amphibious  life,  and  as  long  as  the  long  sum- 
mer lasted  they  were  almost  as  much  in  the  water 
as  on  the  land.  The  Basin,  however,  unlike  the 
river,  had  a  winter  as  well  as  a  summer  climate, 
and  one  of  the  very  first  things  that  my  boy  could 
remember  was  being  on  the  ice  there.  He  learned 
to  skate,  but  he  did  not  know  when,  any  more 
than  he  knew  just  the  moment  of  learning  to  read 
or   to    swim.     He    became    passionately   fond    of 

61 


BOY   LIFE 

skating,  and  kept  at  it  all  day  long  when  there 
was  ice  for  it,  which  was  not  often  in  those  soft 
winters.  They  made  a  very  little  ice  go  a  long 
way  in  the  Boy's  Town;  and  began  to  use  it  for 
skating  as  soon  as  there  was  a  glazing  of  it  on 
the  Basin.  None  of  them  ever  got  drowned 
there;  though  a  boy  would  often  start  from  one 
bank  and  go  flying  to  the  other,  trusting  his  speed 
to  save  him,  while  the  thin  sheet  sank  and  swayed, 
but  never  actually  broke  under  him.  Usually 
the  ice  was  not  thick  enough  to  have  a  fire  built 
on  it;  and  it  must  have  been  on  ice  which  was 
just  strong  enough  to  bear  that  my  boy  skated 
all  one  bitter  afternoon  at  Old  River,  without  a 
fire  to  warm  by.  At  first  his  feet  were  very  cold, 
and  then  they  gradually  felt  less  cold,  and  at 
last  he  did  not  feel  them  at  all.  He  thought  this 
very  nice,  and  he  told  one  of  the  big  boys.  ''Why, 
your  feet  are  frozen!"  said  the  big  boy,  and  he 
dragged  off  my  boy's  skates,  and  the  little  one 
ran  all  the  long  mile  home,  crazed  with  terror, 
and  not  knowing  what  moment  his  feet  might 
drop  off  there  in  the  road.  His  mother  plunged 
them  in  a  bowl  of  ice-cold  water,  and  then  rubbed 
them  with  flannel,  and  so  thawed  them  out;  but 
that  could  not  save  him  from  the  pain  of  their 
coming  to:  it  was  intense,  and  there  must  have 
been  a  time  afterward  when  he  did  not  use  his 
feet. 

62 


LIFE    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

His  skates  themselves  were  of  a  sort  that  I  am 
afraid  boys  would  smile  at  nowadays.  When 
you  went  to  get  a  pair  of  skates  forty  or  fifty  years 
ago,  you  did  not  make  your  choice  between  a 
Barney  &:  Berry  and  an  Acme,  which  fastened 
on  with  the  turn  of  a  screw  or  the  twist  of  a  clamp. 
You  found  an  assortment  of  big  and  little  sizes 
of  solid  wood  bodies  with  guttered  blades  turn- 
ing up  in  front  with  a  sharp  point,  or  perhaps 
curling  over  above  the  toe.  In  this  case  they 
sometimes  ended  in  an  acorn;  if  this  acorn  was 
of  brass,  it  transfigured  the  boy  who  wore  that 
skate;  he  might  have  been  otherwise  all  rags 
and  patches,  but  the  brass  acorn  made  him  splen- 
did from  head  to  foot.  When  you  had  bought 
your  skates,  you  took  them  to  a  carpenter,  and 
stood  awe-strickenly  about  while  he  pierced  the 
wood  with  strap-holes;  or  else  you  managed  to 
bore  them  through  with  a  hot  iron  yourself. 
Then  you  took  them  to  a  saddler,  and  got  him 
to  make  straps  for  them;  that  is,  if  you  were 
rich,  and  your  father  let  you  have  a  quarter  to 
pay  for  the  job.  If  not,  you  put  strings  through, 
and  tied  your  skates  on.  They  were  always 
coming  off,  or  getting  crosswise  of  your  foot,  or 
feeble-mindedly  slumping  down  on  one  side  of 
the  wood;  but  it  did  not  matter,  if  you  had  a  fire 
on  the  ice,  fed  with  old  barrels  and  boards  and 
cooper's   shavings,   and   could   sit   round   it  with 

63 


BOY   LIFE 


your  skates  on,  and  talk  and  tell  stories,  between 
your  flights  and  races  afar;  and  come  whizzing 
back  to  it  from  the  frozen  distance,  and  glide, 
with  one  foot  lifted,  almost  among  the  embers. 


MANNERS  AND   CUSTOMS 

I  sometimes  wonder  how  much  these  have 
changed  since  my  boy's  time.  Of  course  they 
differ  somewhat  from  generation  to  generation, 
and  from  East  to  West  and  North  to  South, 
but  not  so  much,  I  believe,  as  grown  people  are 
apt  to  think.  Everywhere  and  always  the  world 
of  boys  is  outside  of  the  laws  that  govern  grown- 
up communities,  and  it  has  its  unwritten  usages, 
which  are  handed  down  from  old  to  young,  and 
perpetuated  on  the  same  level  of  years,  and  are 
lived  into  and  lived  out  of,  but  are  binding, 
through  all  personal  vicissitudes,  upon  the  great 
body  of  boys  between  six  and  twelve  years  old. 
No  boy  can  violate  them  without  losing  his  stand- 
ing among  the  other  boys,  and  he  cannot  enter 
into  their  world  without  coming  under  them.  He 
must  do  this,  and  must  not  do  that;  he  obeys, 
but  he  does  not  know  why,  any  more  than  the 
far-oflp  savages  from  whom  his  customs  seem 
mostly  to  have  come.  His  world  is  all  in  and 
through  the  world  of  men  and  women,  but  no 

64 


LIFE    IN    A   BOY'S   TOWN 

man  or  woman  can  get  into  it  any  more  than  if 
it  were  a  world  of  invisible  beings.  It  has  its 
own  ideals  and  superstitions,  and  these  are  often 
of  a  ferocity,  a  depravity,  scarcely  credible  in 
after-life.  It  is  a  great  pity  that  "fathers  and 
mothers  cannot  penetrate  that  world;  but  they 
cannot,  and  it  is  only  by  accident  that  they  can 
catch  some  glimpse  of  what  goes  on  in  it.  No 
doubt  it  will  be  civilized  in  time,  but  it  will  be 
very  slowly;  and  in  the  mean  while  it  is  only  in 
some  of  its  milder  manners  and  customs  that  the 
boy's  world  can  be  studied. 

The  first  great  law  was  that,  whatever  happened 
to  you  through  another  boy,  whatever  hurt  or 
harm  he  did  you,  you  were  to  right  yourself  upon 
his  person  if  you  could;  but  if  he  was  too  big,  and 
you  could  not  hope  to  revenge  yourself,  then  you 
were  to  bear  the  wrong,  not  only  for  that  time, 
but  for  as  many  times  as  he  chose  to  inflict  it. 
To  tell  the  teacher  or  your  mother,  or  to  betray 
your  tormentor  to  any  one  outside  of  the  boys' 
world,  was  to  prove  yourself  a  cry-baby,  without 
honor  or  self-respect,  and  unfit  to  go  with  the  other 
fellows.  They  would  have  the  right  to  mock  you, 
to  point  at  you,  and  call  "E-e-e,  e-e-e,  e-e-e!" 
at  you,  till  you  fought  them.  After  that,  whether 
you  whipped  them  or  not,  there  began  to  be 
some  feeling  in  your  favor  again,  and  they  had  to 
stop. 

5  65 


BOY   LIFE 

Every  boy  who  came  to  town  from  somewhere 
else,  or  who  moved  into  a  new  neighborhood,  had 
to  fight  the  old  residents.  There  was  no  reason 
for  this,  except  that  he  was  a  stranger,  and  there 
appeared  to  be  no  other  means  of  making  his 
acquaintance.  If  he  was  generally  whipped  he 
became  subject  to  the  local  tribe,  as  the  Dela- 
wares  were  to  the  Iroquois  in  the  last  century; 
if  he  whipped  the  other  boys,  then  they  adopted 
him  into  their  tribe,  and  he  became  a  leader 
among  them.  When  you  moved  away  from  a 
neighborhood  you  did  not  lose  all  your  rights  in 
it;  you  did  not  have  to  fight  when  you  went  back 
to  see  the  boys,  or  anything;  but  if  one  of  them 
met  you  in  your  new  precincts  you  might  have  to 
try  conclusions  with  him;  and  perhaps,  if  he  was 
a  boy  who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  whipping  you, 
you  were  quite  ready  to  do  so.  When  my  boy's 
family  left  the  Smith  house,  one  of  the  boys  from 
that  neighborhood  came  up  to  see  him  at  the  Fal- 
coner house,  and  tried  to  carry  things  with  a  high 
hand,  as  he  always  had  done.  Then  my  boy 
fought  him,  quite  as  if  he  were  not  a  Delaware 
and  the  other  boy  not  an  Iroquois,  with  sovereign 
rights  over  him.  My  boy  was  beaten,  but  the 
difference  was  that,  if  he  had  not  been  on  new 
ground,  he  would  have  been  beaten  without  dar- 
ing to  fight.  His  mother  witnessed  the  combat, 
and  came  out  and  shamed  him  for  his  behavior, 

66 


LIFE    IN    A   BOY'S   TOWN 

and  had  in  the  other  boy,  and  made  them  friends 
over  some  sugar-cakes.  But  after  that  the  boys 
of  the  Smith  neighborhood  understood  that  my 
boy  would  not  be  whipped  without  fighting.  The 
home  instruction  was  all  against  fighting;  my  boy 
was  taught  that  it  was  not  only  wicked  but  fool- 
ish; that  if  it  was  wrong  to  strike,  it  was  just  as 
wrong  to  strike  back;  that  two  wrongs  never  made 
a  right,  and  so  on.  But  all  this  was  not  of  the 
least  effect  with  a  hot  temper  amid  the  trials  and 
perplexities  of  life  in  the  Boy's  Town. 

Their  fights  were  mostly  informal  scuffles,  on 
and  off  in  a  flash,  and  conducted  with  none  of 
the  ceremony  which  I  have  read  of  concerning 
the  fights  of  English  boys.  It  was  believed  that 
some  of  the  fellows  knew  how  to  box,  and  all  the 
fellows  intended  to  learn,  but  nobody  ever  did. 
The  fights  sprang  usually  out  of  some  trouble  of 
the  moment;  but  at  times  they  were  arranged  to 
settle  some  question  of  moral  or  physical  superior- 
ity. Then  one  boy  put  a  chip  on  his  shoulder 
and  dared  the  other  to  knock  it  off".  It  took  a 
great  while  to  bring  the  champions  to  blows,  and 
I  have  known  the  mere  preparatory  insults  of  a 
fight  of  this  kind  to  wear  out  the  spirit  of  the  com- 
batants and  the  patience  of  the  spectators,  so  that 
not  a  blow  was  struck,  finally,  and  the  whole 
affair  fell  through. 

67 


BOY    LIFE 


GIRLS 


Though  they  were  so  quarrelsome  among  them- 
selves, the  boys  that  my  boy  went  with  never 
molested  girls.  They  mostly  ignored  them;  but 
they  would  have  scorned  to  hurt  a  girl  almost  as 
much  as  they  would  have  scorned  to  play  with  one. 
Of  course,  while  they  were  very  little,  they  played 
with  girls;  and  after  they  began  to  be  big  boys, 
eleven  or  twelve  years  old,  they  began  to  pay 
girls  some  attention;  but  for  the  rest  they  simply 
left  them  out  of  the  question,  except  at  parties, 
when  the  games  obliged  them  to  take  some  notice 
of  the  girls.  Even  then,  however,  it  was  not  good 
form  for  a  boy  to  be  greatly  interested  in  them; 
and  he  had  to  conceaj  any  little  fancy  he  had  about 
this  girl  or  that  unless  he  wanted  to  be  considered 
soft  by  the  other  fellows.  When  they  were  hav- 
ing fun  they  did  not  want  to  have  any  girls  around; 
but  in  the  back-yard  a  boy  might  play  teeter  or 
seesaw,  or  some  such  thing,  with  his  sisters  and 
their  friends,  without  necessarily  losing  caste, 
though  such  things  were  not  encouraged.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  boy  was  bound  to  defend  them 
against  anything  that  he  thought  slighting  or 
insulting;  and  you  did  not  have  to  verify  the  fact 
that  anything  had  been  said  or  done;  you  merely 
had  to  hear  that  it  had. 

68 


LIFE    IN    A    BOY'S    TOWN 


MOTHERS 

The  boys  had  very  Httle  to  do  with  the  inside 
of  one  another's  houses.  They  would  follow  a 
boy  to  his  door,  and  wait  for  him  to  come  out; 
and  they  would  sometimes  get  him  to  go  in  and 
ask  his  mother  for  crullers  or  sugar-cakes;  when 
they  came  to  see  him  they  never  went  indoors 
for  him,  but  stood  on  the  sidewalk  and  called 
him  with  a  peculiar  cry,  something  like  "E-oo-we, 
e-oo-we!"  and  threw  stones  at  trees,  or  anything, 
till  he  came  out.  If  he  did  not  come  after  a 
reasonable  time,  they  knew  he  was  not  there,  or 
that  his  mother  would  not  let  him  come.  A 
fellow  was  kept  in  that  way,  now  and  then.  If 
a  fellow's  mother  came  to  the  door  the  boys  al- 
ways ran. 

The  mother  represented  the  family  sovereignty; 
the  father  was  seldom  seen,  and  he  counted  for 
little  or  nothing  among  the  outside  boys.  It  was 
the  mother  who  could  say  whether  a  boy  might 
go  fishing  or  in  swimming,  and  she  was  held  a 
good  mother  or  not  according  as  she  habitually 
said  yes  or  no.  There  was  no  other  standard  of 
goodness  for  mothers  in  the  boy's  world,  and 
could  be  none;  and  a  bad  mother  might  be  out- 
witted by  any  device  that  the  other  boys  could 
suggest  to  her  boy.     Such  a  boy  was  always  will- 

69 


BOY    LIFE 

ing  to  listen  to  any  suggestion,  and  no  boy  took 
it  hard  if  the  other  fellows  made  fun  when  their 
plan  got  him  into  trouble  at  home.  If  a  boy 
came  out  after  some  such  experience  with  his 
face  wet,  and  his  eyes  red,  and  his  lips  swollen, 
of  course  you  had  to  laugh;  he  expected  it,  and 
you  expected  him  to  stone  you  for  laughing. 

When  a  boy's  mother  had  company,  he  went 
and  hid  till  the  guests  were  gone,  or  only  came 
out  of  concealment  to  get  some  sort  of  shy  lunch. 
If  the  other  fellows'  mothers  were  there,  he  might 
be  a  little  bolder,  and  bring  out  cake  from  the 
second  table.  But  he  had  to  be  pretty  careful 
how  he  conformed  to  any  of  the  usages  of  grown- 
up society.  A  fellow  who  brushed  his  hair,  and 
put  on  shoes,  and  came  into  the  parlor  when  there 
was  company,  was  not  well  seen  among  the  fellows; 
he  was  regarded  in  some  degree  as  a  girl-boy; 
a  boy  who  wished  to  stand  well  with  other  boys 
kept  in  the  woodshed,  and  only  went  in  as  far 
as  the  kitchen  to  get  things  for  his  guests  in  the 
back-yard.  Yet  there  were  mothers  who  would 
make  a  boy  put  on  a  collar  when  they  had  com- 
pany, and  disgrace  him  before  the  world  by  mak- 
ing him  stay  round  and  help;  they  acted  as  if 
they  had  no  sense  and  no  pity;  but  such  mothers 
were  rare. 

Most  mothers  yielded  to  public  opinion  and  let 
their  boys  leave  the  house,  and  wear  just  what 

70 


LIFE    IN    A    BOY'S   TOWN 

they  always  wore.  I  have  told  how  little  they 
wore  in  summer.  Of  course  in  winter  they  had 
to  put  on  more  things.  In  those  days  knicker- 
bockers were  unknown,  and  if  a  boy  had  ap- 
peared in  short  pants  and  long  stockings  he  would 
have  been  thought  dressed  like  a  circus-actor. 
Boys  wore  long  pantaloons,  like  men,  as  soon  as 
they  put  off  skirts,  and  they  wore  jackets  or 
roundabouts  such  as  the  English  boys  still  wear 
at  Eton.  When  the  cold  weather  came  they  had 
to  put  on  shoes  and  stockings,  or  rather  long- 
legged  boots,  such  as  are  seen  now  only  among 
lumbermen  and  teamsters  in  the  country.  Most 
of  the  fellows  had  stoga  boots,  as  heavy  as  iron 
and  as  hard;  they  were  splendid  to  skate  in, 
they  kept  your  ankles  so  stiff.  Sometimes  they 
greased  them  to  keep  the  water  out;  but  they 
never  blacked  them  except  on  Sunday,  and  be- 
fore Saturday  they  were  as  red  as  a  rusty  stove- 
pipe. At  night  they  were  always  so  wet  that  you 
could  not  get  them  off  without  a  boot-jack,  and 
you  could  hardly  do  it  anyway;  sometimes  you 
got  your  brother  to  help  you  off  with  them,  and 
then  he  pulled  you  all  round  the  room.  In  the 
morning  they  were  dry,  but  just  as  hard  as  stone, 
and  you  had  to  soap  the  heel  of  your  woollen 
sock  (which  your  grandmother  had  knitted  for 
you,  or  maybe  some  of  your  aunts)  before  you 
could  get  your  foot  in,  and  sometimes  the  ears  of 

71 


BOY   LIFE 

the  boot  that  you  pulled  it  on  by  would  give  way, 
and  you  would  have  to  stamp  your  foot  in  and 
kick  the  toe  against  the  mop-board.  Then  you 
gasped  and  limped  round,  with  your  feet  like 
fire,  till  you  could  get  out  and  limber  your  boots 
up  in  some  water  somewhere.  About  noon  your 
chilblains  began. 

I  have  tried  to  give  some  notion  of  the  general 
distribution  of  comfort,  which  was  never  riches, 
in  the  Boy's  Town;  but  I  am  afraid  that  I  could 
not  paint  the  simplicity  of  things  there  truly 
without  being  misunderstood  in  these  days  of 
great  splendor  and  great  squalor.  Everybody 
had  enough,  but  nobody  had  too  much;  the 
richest  man  in  town  might  be  worth  twenty 
thousand  dollars.  There  were  distinctions  among 
the  grown  people,  and  no  doubt  there  were  the 
social  cruelties  which  are  the  modern  expression 
of  the  savage  spirit  otherwise  repressed  by  civili- 
zation; but  these  were  unknown  among  the  boys. 
Savages  they  were,  but  not  that  kind  of  savages. 
They  valued  a  boy  for  his  character  and  prowess, 
and  it  did  not  matter  in  the  least  that  he  was 
ragged  and  dirty.  Their  mothers  might  not  al- 
low him  the  run  of  their  kitchens  quite  so  freely 
as  some  other  boys,  but  the  boys  went  with  him 
just  the  same,  and  they  never  noticed  how  little ' 
he  was  washed  and  dressed.  The  best  of  them 
had  not  an  overcoat;    and  underclothing  was  un- 

72 


LIFE    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

known  among  them.  When  a  boy  had  buttoned 
up  his  roundabout,  and  put  on  his  mittens,  and 
tied  his  comforter  round  his  neck  and  over  his 
ears,  he  was  warmly  dressed. 


A   BROTHER 

My  boy  was  often  kept  from  being  a  fool,  and 
worse,  by  that  elder  brother  of  his;  and  I  advise 
every  boy  to  have  an  elder  brother.  Have  a 
brother  about  four  years  older  than  yourself,  I 
should  say;  and  if  your  temper  is  hot,  and  your 
disposition  revengeful,  and  you  are  a  vain  and 
ridiculous  dreamer  at  the  same  time  that  you  are 
eager  to  excel  in  feats  of  strength  and  games  of 
skill,  and  to  do  everything  that  the  other  fellows 
do,  and  are  ashamed  to  be  better  than  the  worst 
boy  in  the  crowd,  your  brother  can  be  of  the  great- 
est use  to  you,  with  his  larger  experience  and  wis- 
dom. My  boy's  brother  seemed  to  have  an  ideal 
of  usefulness,  while  my  boy  only  had  an  ideal  of 
glory — to  wish  to  help  others,  while  my  boy  only 
wished  to  help  himself.  My  boy  would  as  soon 
have  thought  of  his  father's  doing  a  wrong  thing 
as  of  his  brother's  doing  it;  and  his  brother  was 
a  calm  light  of  common-sense,  of  justice,  of  truth, 
while  he  was  a  fantastic  flicker  of  gaudy  purposes 
which  he  wished  to   make  shine  before  men  in 

73 


BOY    LIFE 

their  fulfilment.  His  brother  was  always  doing 
for  him  and  for  the  younger  children;  while  my 
boy  only  did  for  himself;  he  had  a  very  gray 
mustache  before  he  began  to  have  any  concep- 
tion of  ths  fact  that  he  was  sent  into  the  world 
to  serve  and  to  suffer,  as  well  as  to  rule  and  enjoy. 
But  his  brother  seemed  to  know  this  instinctively; 
he  bore  the  yoke  in  his  youth,  patiently  if  not 
willingly;  he  shared  the  anxieties  as  he  parted 
the  cares  of  his  father  and  mother.  Yet  he  was 
a  boy  among  boys,  too;  he  loved  to  swim,  to  skate, 
to  fish,  to  forage,  and  passionately,  above  all, 
he  loved  to  hunt;  but  in  everything  he  held  him- 
self in  check,  that  he  might  hold  the  younger 
boys  in  check;  and  my  boy  often  repaid  his  con- 
scientious vigilance  with  hard  words  and  hard 
names,  such  as  embitter  even  the  most  self-for- 
giving memories.  He  kept  mechanically  within 
certain  laws,  and  though  in  his  rage  he  hurled 
every  other  name  at  his  brother,  he  would  not  call 
him  a  fool,  because  then  he  would  be  in  danger 
of  hell-fire.  If  he  had  known  just  what  Raca 
meant,  he  might  have  called  him  Raca,  for  he 
was  not  so  much  afraid  of  the  council;  but,  as  it 
was,  his  brother  escaped  that  insult,  and  held 
through  all  a  rein  upon  him,  and  governed  him 
through  his  scruples  as  well  as  his  fears. 

His  brother  was  full  of  inventions  and  enter- 
prises beyond  most  other  boys,  and  his  undertak- 

74 


LIFE    IN    A    BOY'S   TOWN 

ings  came  to  the  same  end  of  nothingness  that 
awaits  all  boyish  endeavor.  He  intended  to  make 
fireworks  and  sell  them;  he  meant  to  raise  silk- 
worms; he  prepared  to  take  the  contract  of  clear- 
ing the  new  cemetery  grounds  of  stumps  by  blast- 
ing them  out  with  gunpowder.  Besides  this,  he 
had  a  plan  with  another  big  boy  for  making  money, 
by  getting  slabs  from  the  saw-mill,  and  sawing 
them  up  into  stove-wood,  and  selling  them  to  the 
cooks  of  canal-boats.  The  only  trouble  was  that 
the  cooks  would  not  buy  the  fuel,  even  when  the 
boys  had  a  half-cord  of  it  all  nicely  piled  up  on 
the  canal-bank;  they  would  rather  come  ashore 
after  dark  and  take  it  for  nothing.  He  had  a 
good  many  other  schemes  for  getting  rich  that 
failed;  and  he  wanted  to  go  to  California  and 
dig  gold;  only  his  mother  would  not  consent.  He 
really  did  save  the  Canal-Basin  once,  when  the 
banks  began  to  give  way  after  a  long  rain.  He 
saw  the  break  beginning,  and  ran  to  tell  his  father, 
who  had  the  fire-bells  rung.  The  fire  companies 
came  rushing  to  the  rescue,  but  as  they  could  not 
put  the  Basin  out  with  their  engines,  they  all  got 
shovels  and  kept  it  in.  They  did  not  do  this 
before  it  had  overflowed  the  street,  and  run  into 
the  cellars  of  the  nearest  houses.  The  water 
stood  two  feet  deep  in  the  kitchen  of  my  boy's 
house,  and  the  yard  was  flooded  so  that  the  boys 
made   rafts   and   navigated   it   for   a   whole   day. 

75 


BOY  LIFE 

My  boy's  brother  got  drenched  to  the  skin  in  the 
rain,  and  lots  of  fellows  fell  off  the  rafts. 

He  belonged  to  a  military  company  of  big 
boys  that  had  real  wooden  guns,  such  as  the  lit- 
tle boys  never  could  get,  and  silk  oil-cloth  caps, 
and  nankeen  roundabouts,  and  white  pantaloons 
with  black  stripes  down  the  legs;  and  once  they 
marched  out  to  a  boy's  that  had  a  father  that 
had  a  farm,  and  he  gave  them  all  a  free  dinner 
in  an  arbor  before  the  house:  bread-and-butter, 
and  apple-butter,  and  molasses  and  pound  cake, 
and  peaches  and  apples;  it  was  splendid.  When 
the  excitement  about  the  Mexican  War  was  the 
highest,  the  company  wanted  a  fort;  and  they 
got  a  farmer  to  come  and  scale  off  the  sod  with 
his  plough,  in  a  grassy  place  there  was  near  a 
piece  of  woods,  where  a  good  many  cows  were 
pastured.  They  took  the  pieces  of  sod,  and  built 
them  up  into  the  walls  of  a  fort  about  fifteen  feet 
square;  they  intended  to  build  them  higher  than 
their  heads,  but  they  got  so  eager  to  have  the 
works  stormed  that  they  could  not  wait,  and 
they  commenced  having  the  battle  when  they 
had  the  walls  only  breast  high.  There  were  going 
to  be  two  parties:  one  to  attack  the  fort,  and  the 
other  to  defend  it,  and  they  were  just  going  to 
throw  sods;  but  one  boy  had  a  real  shot-gun, 
that  he  was  to  load  up  with  powder  and  fire  off 
when  the  battle  got  to  the  worst,  so  as  to  have  it 

76 


LIFE    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

more  like  a  battle.  He  thought  it  would  be  more 
like  yet  if  he  put  in  a  few  shot,  and  he  did  it  on 
his  own  hook.  It  was  a  splendid  gun,  but  it 
would  not  stand  cocked  long,  and  he  was  resting 
it  on  the  wall  of  the  fort,  ready  to  fire  when  the 
storming-party  came  on,  throwing  sods  and  yell- 
ing and  holloing;  and  all  at  once  his  gun  went 
off,  and  a  cow  that  was  grazing  broadside  to  the 
fort  gave  a  frightened  bellow,  and  put  up  her 
tail,  and  started  for  home.  When  they  found  out 
that  the  gun,  if  not  the  boy,  had  shot  a  cow,  the 
Mexicans  and  Americans  both  took  to  their  heels; 
and  it  was  a  good  thing  they  did  so,  for  as  soon 
as  that  cow  got  home,  and  the  owner  found  out 
by  the  blood  on  her  that  she  had  been  shot,  though 
it  was  only  a  very  slight  wound,  he  was  so  mad 
that  he  did  not  know  what  to  do,  and  very  likely 
he  would  have  half  killed  those  boys  if  he  had 
caught  them.  He  got  a  plough,  and  he  went  out 
to  their  fort,  and  he  ploughed  it  all  down  flat, 
so  that  not  one  sod  remained  upon  another. 

My  boy's  brother  went  to  all  sorts  of  places 
that  my  boy  was  too  shy  to  go  to;  and  he  asso- 
ciated with  much  older  boys,  but  there  was  one 
boy  who,  as  I  have  said,  was  the  dear  friend  of 
both  of  them,  and  that  was  the  boy  who  came 
to  learn  the  trade  in  their  father's  printing-office, 
and  who  began  an  historical  romance  at  the  time 
my    boy   began   his   great   Moorish   novel.     The 

77 


BOY   LIFE 

first  day  he  came  he  was  put  to  roll,  or  ink,  the 
types,  while  my  boy's  brother  worked  the  press, 
and  all  day  long  my  boy,  from  where  he  was 
setting  type,  could  hear  him  telling  the  story  of 
a  book  he  had  read.  It  was  about  a  person 
named  Monte  Cristo,  who  was  a  count,  and  who 
could  do  anything.  My  boy  listened  with  a 
gnawing  literary  jealousy  of  a  boy  who  had  read 
a  book  that  he  had  never  heard  of.  He  tried  to 
think  whether  it  sounded  as  if  it  were  as  great 
a  book  as  the  Conquest  of  Granaday  or  Gesta 
Romanorum\  and  for  a  time  he  kept  aloof  from 
this  boy  because  of  his  envy.  Afterward  they 
came  together  on  Don  Quixote^  but  though  my 
boy  came  to  have  quite  a  passionate  fondness  for 
him,  he  was  long  in  getting  rid  of  his  grudge 
against  him  for  his  knowledge  of  Monte  Cristo. 
He  was  as  great  a  laugher  as  my  boy  and  his 
brother,  and  he  liked  the  same  sports,  so  that 
two  by  two,  or  all  three  together,  they  had  no 
end  of  jokes  and  fun.  He  became  the  editor  of 
a  country  newspaper,  with  varying  fortunes  but 
steadfast  principles,  and  when  the  war  broke  out 
he  went  as  a  private  soldier.  He  soon  rose  to 
be  an  officer,  and  fought  bravely  in  many  battles. 
Then  he  came  back  to  a  country-newspaper  office 
where,  ever  after,  he  continued  to  fight  the  bat- 
tles of  right  against  wrong,  till  he  died  not  long 
ago  at  his   post  of  duty — a  true,  generous,   and 

78 


LIFE   IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

lofty  soul.  He  was  one  of  those  boys  who  grow 
into  the  men  who  seem  commoner  in  America 
than  elsewhere,  and  who  succeed  far  beyond  our 
millionaires  and  statesmen  in  realizing  the  ideal 
of  America  in  their  nobly  simple  lives.  If  his 
story  could  be  faithfully  written  out,  word  for 
word,  deed  for  deed,  it  would  be  far  more  thrill- 
ing than  that  of  Monte  Cristo,  or  any  hero  of 
romance;  and  so  would  the  common  story  of 
any  common  life.  But  we  cannot  tell  these 
stories,  somehow. 

A  FRIEND 

My  boy's  closest  friend  was  a  boy  who  was 
probably  never  willingly  at  school  in  his  life,  and 
who  had  no  more  relish  of  literature  or  learning 
in  him  than  the  open  fields,  or  the  warm  air  of 
an  early  spring  day.  I  dare  say  it  was  a  sense  of 
his  kinship  with  Nature  that  took  my  boy  with  him, 
and  rested  his  soul  from  all  its  wild  dreams  and 
vain  imaginings.  He  was  like  a  piece  of  the  genial 
earth,  with  no  more  hint  of  toiling  or  spinning  in 
him;  willing  for  anything,  but  passive,  and  with- 
out force  or  aim.  He  lived  in  a  belated  log-cabin 
that  stood  in  the  edge  of  a  cornfield  on  the  river- 
bank,  and  he  seemed,  one  day  when  my  boy  went 
to  find  him  there,  to  have  a  mother,  who  smoked 
a  cob-pipe,  and  two  or  three  large  sisters  who 

79 


BOY   LIFE 

hulked  about  in  the  one  dim,  low  room.  But 
the  boys  had  very  little  to  do  with  each  other's 
houses,  or,  for  that  matter,  with  each  oher's 
yards.  His  friend  seldom  entered  my  boy's  gate, 
and  never  his  door;  for  with  all  the  toleration  his 
father  felt  for  every  manner  of  human  creature, 
he  could  not  see  what  good  the  boy  was  to  get  from 
this  queer  companion.  It  is  certain  that  he  got 
no  harm;  for  his  companion  was  too  vague  and 
void  even  to  think  evil.  Socially,  he  was  as  low 
as  the  ground  under  foot,  but  morally  he  was  as 
good  as  any  boy  in  the  Boy's  Town,  and  he  had 
no  bad  impulses.  He  had  no  impulses  at  all, 
in  fact,  and  of  his  own  motion  he  never  did  any- 
thing, or  seemed  to  think  anything.  When  he 
wished  to  get  at  my  boy,  he  simply  appeared  in 
the  neighborhood,  and  hung  about  the  outside  of 
the  fence  till  he  came  out.  He  did  not  whistle, 
or  call  **E-oo-we!"  as  the  other  fellows  did,  but 
waited  patiently  to  be  discovered,  and  to  be  gone 
off  with  wherever  my  boy  listed.  He  never  had 
any  plans  himself,  and  never  any  will  but  to  go 
in  swimming;  he  neither  hunted  nor  foraged;  he 
did  not  even  fish;  and  I  suppose  that  money  could 
not  have  hired  him  to  run  races.  He  played  mar- 
bles, but  not  very  well,  and  he  did  not  care  much 
for  the  game.  The  two  boys  soaked  themselves 
in  the  river  together,  and  then  they  lay  on  the 
sandy  shore,  or  under  some  tree,  and  talked;  but 

80 


LIFE    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

my  boy  could  not  have  talked  to  him  about  any 
of  the  things  that  were  in  his  books,  or  the  fume 
of  dreams  they  sent  up  in  his  mind.  He  must 
rather  have  soothed  against  his  soft,  caressing 
ignorance  the  ache  of  his  fantastic  spirit,  and.  re- 
posed his  intensity  of  purpose  in  that  lax  and  easy 
aimlessness.  Their  friendship  was  not  only  more 
innocent  than  any  other  friendship  my  boy  had, 
but  it  was  wholly  innocent;  they  loved  each  other, 
and  that  was  all;  and  why  people  love  one  another 
there  is  never  any  satisfactory  telling.  But  this 
friend  of  his  must  have  had  great  natural  good  in 
him;  and  if  I  could  find  a  man  of  the  make  of 
that  boy  I  am  sure  I  should  love  him. 

My  boy's  other  friends  wondered  at  his  fond- 
ness for  him,  and  it  was  often  made  a  question 
with  him  at  home,  if  not  a  reproach  to  him;  so 
that  in  the  course  of  time  it  ceased  to  be  that  com- 
fort it  had  been  to  him.  He  could  not  give  him 
up,  but  he  could  not  help  seeing  that  he  was  igno- 
rant and  idle,  and  in  a  fatal  hour  he  resolved  to 
reform  him.  I  am  not  able  to  say  now  just  how 
he  worked  his  friend  up  to  the  point  of  coming  to 
school,  and  of  washing  his  hands  and  feet  and 
face,  and  putting  on  a  new  check  shirt  to  come  in. 
But  one  day  he  came,  and  my  boy,  as  he  had 
planned,  took  him  into  his  seat,  and  owned  his 
friendship  with  him  before  the  whole  school. 
This  was  not  easy,  for  though  everybody  knew 
6  8i 


BOY   LIFE 

how  much  the  two  were  together,  it  was  a  different 
thing  to  sit  with  him  as  if  he  thought  him  just  as 
good  as  any  boy,  and  to  help  him  get  his  lessons, 
and  stay  him  mentally  as  well  as  socially.  He 
struggled  through  one  day,  and  maybe  another; 
but  it  was  a  failure  from  the  first  moment,  and  my 
boy  breathed  freer  when  his  friend  came  one  half- 
day,  and  then  never  came  again.  The  attempted 
reform  had  spoiled  their  simple  and  harmless  in- 
timacy. They  never  met  again  upon  the  old 
ground  of  perfect  trust  and  affection.  Perhaps 
the  kindly  earth -spirit  had  instinctively  felt  a 
wound  from  the  shame  my  boy  had  tried  to  brave 
out,  and  shrank  from  their  former  friendship  with- 
out quite  knowing  why.  Perhaps  it  was  my  boy 
who  learned  to  realize  that  there  could  be  little 
in  common  but  their  common  humanity  between 
them,  and  could  not  go  back  to  that.  At  any 
rate,  their  friendship  declined  from  this  point; 
and  it  seems  to  me,  somehow,  a  pity. 

Among  the  boys  who  were  between  my  boy 
and  his  brother  in  age  was  one  whom  all  the 
boys  liked,  because  he  was  clever  with  every- 
body, with  little  boys  as  well  as  big  boys.  He 
was  a  laughing,  pleasant  fellow,  always  ready 
for  fun,  but  he  never  did  mean  things,  and  he 
had  an  open  face  that  made  a  friend  of  every 
one  who  saw  him.  He  had  a  father  that  had  a 
house  with   a   lightning-rod,  so  that   if  you  were 

82 


LIFE    IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

in  it  when  there  was  a  thunder-storm  you  could 
not  get  struck  by  lightning,  as  my  boy  once 
proved  by  being  in  it  when  there  was  a  thunder- 
storm and  not  getting  struck.  This  in  itself  was 
a  great  merit,  and  there  were  grape-arbors  and 
peach-trees  in  his  yard  which  added  to  his  popu- 
larity, with  cHng-stone  peaches  almost  as  big  as 
oranges  on  them.  He  was  a  fellow  who  could 
take  you  home  to  meals  whenever  he  wanted  to, 
and  he  liked  to  have  boys  stay  all  night  with  him; 
his  mother  was  as  clever  as  he  was,  and  even 
the  sight  of  his  father  did  not  make  the  fellows 
want  to  go  and  hide.  His  father  was  so  clever 
that  he  went  home  with  my  boy  one  night  about 
midnight  when  the  boy  had  come  to  pass  the 
night  with  his  boys,  and  the  youngest  of  them 
had  said  he  always  had  the  nightmare  and  walked 
in  his  sleep,  and  as  likely  as  not  he  might  kill 
you  before  he  knew  it.  My  boy  tried  to  sleep, 
but  the  more  he  reflected  upon  his  chances  of 
getting  through  the  night  alive  the  smaller  they 
seemed;  and  so  he  woke  up  his  potential  mur- 
derer from  the  sweetest  and  soundest  slumber, 
and  said  he  was  going  home,  but  he  was  afraid; 
and  the  boy  had  to  go  and  wake  his  father.  Very 
few  fathers  would  have  dressed  up  and  gone 
home  with  a  boy  at  midnight,  and  perhaps  this 
one  did  so  only  because  the  mother  made  him; 
but  it  shows  how  clever  the  whole  family  was. 

83 


BOY   LIFE 

It  was  their  oldest  boy  whom  my  boy  and  his 
brother  chiefly  went  with  before  that  boy  who 
knew  about  Monte  Crista  came  to  learn  the  trade 
in  their  father's  office.  One  Saturday  in  July 
they  three  spent  the  whole  day  together.  It  was 
just  the  time  when  the  apples  are  as  big  as  wal- 
nuts on  the  trees,  and  a  boy  wants  to  try  whether 
any  of  them  are  going  to  be  sweet  or  not.  The 
boys  tried  a  great  many  of  them,  in  an  old  or- 
chard thrown  open  for  building-lots  behind  my 
boy's  yard;  but  they  could  not  find  any  that 
were  not  sour;  or  that  they  could  eat  till  they 
thought  of  putting  salt  on  them;  if  you  put  salt 
on  it,  you  could  eat  any  kind  of  green  apple, 
whether  it  was  going  to  be  a  sweet  kind  or  not. 
They  went  up  to  the  Basin  bank  and  got  lots  of 
salt  out  of  the  holes  in  the  barrels  lying  there, 
and  then  they  ate  all  the  apples  they  could  hold, 
and  after  that  they  cut  limber  sticks  off  the  trees, 
and  sharpened  the  points,  and  stuck  apples  on 
them  and  threw  them.  You  could  send  an  apple 
almost  out  of  sight  that  way,  and  you  could  scare 
a  dog  almost  as  far  as  you  could  see  him. 

On  Monday  my  boy  and  his  brother  went  to 
school,  but  the  other  boy  was  not  there,  and  in 
the  afternoon  they  heard  he  was  sick.  Then, 
toward  the  end  of  the  week  they  heard  that  he 
had  the  flux;  and  on  Friday,  just  before  school 
let  out,  the  teacher — it  was  the  one  that  whipped 

84 


LIFE   IN   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

so,  and  that  the  fellows  all  liked — rapped  on  his 
desk,  and  began  to  speak  very  solemnly  to  the 
scholars.  He  told  them  that  their  little  mate,  whom 
they  had  played  with  and  studied  with,  was  lying 
very  sick,  so  very  sick  that  it  was  expected  he  would 
die;  and  then  he  read  them  a  serious  lesson  about 
life  and  death,  and  tried  to  make  them  feel  how 
passing  and  uncertain  all  things  were,  and  resolve 
to  live  so  that  they  need  never  be  afraid  to  die. 

Some  of  the  fellows  cried,  and  the  next  day 
some  of  them  went  to  see  the  dying  boy,  and 
my  boy  went  with  them.  His  spirit  was  stricken 
to  the  earth,  when  he  saw  his  gay,  kind  playmate 
lying  there,  white  as  the  pillow  under  his  wasted 
face,  in  which  his  sunken  blue  eyes  showed  large 
and  strange.  The  sick  boy  did  not  say  anything 
that  the  other  boys  could  hear,  but  they  could 
see  the  wan  smile  that  came  to  his  dry  lips,  and 
the  light  come  sadly  into  his  eyes,  when  his  mother 
asked  him  if  he  knew  this  one  or  that;  and  they 
could  not  bear  it,  and  went  out  of  the  room. 

In  a  few  days  they  heard  that  he  was  dead, 
and  one  afternoon  school  did  not  keep,  so  that 
the  boys  might  go  to  the  funeral.  Most  of  them 
walked  in  the  procession;  but  some  of  them  were 
waiting  beside  the  open  grave,  that  was  dug  near 
the  grave  of  that  man  who  believed  there  was  a 
hole  through  the  earth  from  pole  to  pole,  and  had 
a  perforated  stone  globe  on  top  of  his  monument. 

85 


Ill 

GAMES    AND    PASTIMES 


MARBLES 

TN  the  Boy's  Town  they  had  regular  games  and 
■'•  plays,  which  came  and  went  in  a  stated  order. 
The  first  thing  in  the  spring,  as  soon  as  the  frost 
began  to  come  out  of  the  ground,  they  had  marbles 
which  they  played  till  the  weather  began  to  be 
pleasant  for  the  game,  and  then  they  left  it  off. 
There  were  some  mean-spirited  fellows  who  played 
for  fun,  but  any  boy  who  was  anything  played  for 
keeps:  that  is,  keeping  all  the  marbles  he  won. 
As  my  boy  was  skilful  at  marbles,  he  was  able 
to  start  out  in  the  morning  with  his  toy,  or  the 
marble  he  shot  with,  and  a  commy,  or  a  brown 
marble  of  the  lowest  value,  and  come  home  at 
night  with  a  pocketful  of  white-alleys  and  blood- 
alleys,  striped  plasters  and  bull's-eyes,  and  crystals, 
clear  and  clouded.  His  gambling  was  not  ap- 
proved of  at  home,  but  it  was  allowed  him  because 
of  the  hardness  of  his  heart,  I  suppose,  and  be- 
cause it  was  not  thought  well  to  keep  him  up  too 
strictly;  and  I  suspect  it  would  have  been  useless 
to  forbid  his  playing  for  keeps,  though  he  came  to 
have  a  bad  conscience  about  it  before  he  gave  it 

89 


BOY   LIFE 

up.  There  were  three  kinds  of  games  at  marbles 
which  the  boys  played :  one  with  a  long  ring  mark- 
ed out  on  the  ground,  and  a  base  some  distance 
off,  which  you  began  to  shoot  from;  another  with 
a  round  ring,  whose  line  formed  the  base;  and 
another  with  holes,  three  or  five,  hollowed  in  the 
earth  at  equal  distances  from  each  other,  which 
was  called  knucks.  You  could  play  for  keeps  in 
all  these  games;  and  in  knucks,  if  you  won,  you 
had  a  shot  or  shots  at  the  knuckles  of  the  fellow 
who  lost,  and  who  was  obliged  to  hold  them  down 
for  you  to  shoot  at.  Fellows  who  were  mean 
would  twitch  their  knuckles  away  when  they  saw 
your  toy  coming,  and  run;  but  most  of  them  took 
their  punishment  with  the  savage  pluck  of  so 
many  little  Sioux.  As  the  game  began  in  the  raw 
cold  of  the  earliest  spring,  every  boy  had  chapped 
hands,  and  nearly  every  one  had  the  skin  worn 
off  the  knuckle  of  his  middle  finger  from  resting 
it  on  the  ground  when  he  shot.  You  could  use  a 
knuckle-dabster  of  fur  or  cloth  to  rest  your  hand 
on,  but  is  was  considered  effeminate,  and  in  the 
excitement  you  were  apt  to  forget  it,  anyway. 
Marbles  were  always  very  exciting,  and  were 
played  with  a  clamor  as  incessant  as  that  of  a  black- 
bird roost.  A  great  many  points  were  always 
coming  up:  whether  a  boy  took-up,  or  edged, 
beyond  the  very  place  where  his  toy  lay  when  he 
shot;  whether  he  knuckled  down,  or  kept  his  hand 

90 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

on  the  ground,  in  shooting;  whether,  when  an- 
other boy's  toy  drove  one  marble  against  another 
and  knocked  both  out  of  the  ring,  he  holloed 
"Fen  doubs!"  before  the  other  fellow  holloed 
"Doubs!"  whether  a  marble  was  in  or  out  of  the 
ring,  and  whether  the  umpire's  decision  was  just 
or  not.  The  gambling  and  the  quarrelling  went 
on  till  the  second-bell  rang  for  school,  and  began 
again  as  soon  as  the  boys  could  get  back  to  their 
rings  when  school  let  out.  The  rings  were  usually 
marked  on  the  ground  with  a  stick,  but  when  there 
was  a  great  hurry,  or  there  was  no  stick  handy, 
the  side  of  a  fellow's  boot  would  do,  and  the  hol- 
lows for  knucks  were  always  bored  by  twirling 
round  on  your  boot-heel.  This  helped  a  boy  to 
wear  out  his  boots  very  rapidly,  but  that  was  what 
his  boots  were  made  for,  just  as  the  sidewalks 
were  made  for  the  boys'  marble-rings,  and  a 
citizen's  character  for  cleverness  or  meanness  was 
fixed  by  his  walking  round  or  over  the  rings. 
Cleverness  was  used  in  the  Virginia  sense  for 
amiability;  a  person  who  was  clever  in  the  English 
sense  was  smart. 

RACES 

When  the  warm  weather  came  on  in  April,  and 
the  boys  got  off  their  shoes  for  good,  there  came 
races,    in   which    they   seemed    to    fly   on    wings. 

91 


BOY   LIFE 


Life  has  a  good  many  innocent  joys  for  the  human 
animal,  but  surely  none  so  ecstatic  as  the  boy 
feels  when  his  bare  foot  first  touches  the  breast 

of  our  mother  earth  in  the 
spring.  Something  thrills 
F>^  through  him  then  from  the 
heart  of  her  inmost  being 
that  makes  him  feel  kin 
L  with  her,  and  cousin  to  all 
f^  her  dumb  children  of  the 
!\,\ff  grass  and  trees.  His  blood 
leaps  as  wildly  as  at  that 
kiss  of  the  waters  when  he 
plunges  into  their  arms  in 
June;  there  is  something 
even  finer  and  sweeter  in  the 
rapture  of  the  earlier  bliss. 
The  day  will  not  be  long  enough  for  his  flights,  his 
races;  he  aches  more  with  regret  than  with  fatigue 
when  he  must  leave  the  happy  paths  under  the 
stars  outside,  and  creep  into  his  bed.  It  is  all 
like  some  glimpse,  some  foretaste  of  the  heavenly 
time  when  the  earth  and  her  sons  shall  be  recon- 
ciled in  a  deathless  love,  and  they  shall  not  be 
thankless,  nor  she  a  stepmother  any  more. 

About  the  only  drawback  to  going  barefoot  was 
stumping  your  toe,  which  you  were  pretty  sure  to 
do  when  you  first  took  off^  your  shoes  and  before 
you  had  got  used  to  your  new  running  weight. 

92 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

When  you  struck  your  toe  against  a  rock,  or  any- 
thing, you  caught  it  up  in  your  hand,  and  hopped 
about  a  hundred  yards  before  you  could  bear  to 
put  it  to  the  ground.  Then  you  sat  down,  and 
held  it  as  tight  as  you  could,  and  cried  over  it, 
till  the  fellows  helped  you  to  the  pump  to  wash  the 
blood  off.  Then,  as  soon  as  you  could,  you  limped 
home  for  a  rag,  and  kept  pretty  quiet  about  it  so 
as  to  get  out  again  without  letting  on  to  your 
mother. 

A  MEAN   TRICK 

There  were  shade -trees  all  along  the  street, 
that  you  could  climb  if  you  wanted  to,  or  that 
you  could  lie  down  under  when  you  had  run 
yourself  out  of  breath,  or  play  mumble-the-peg. 
My  boy  distinctly  remembered  that  under  one 
of  these  trees  his  elder  brother  first  broached  to 
him  that  awful  scheme  of  reform  about  fibbing, 
and  applied  to  their  own  lives  the  moral  of  The 
Trippings  of  Tom  Pepper;  he  remembered  how 
a  conviction  of  the  righteousness  of  the  scheme 
sank  into  his  soul,  and  he  could  not  withhold  his 
consent.  Under  the  same  tree,  and  very  likely 
at  the  same  time,  a  solemn  conclave  of  boys,  all 
the  boys  there  were,  discussed  the  feasibility  of 
tying  a  tin  can  to  a  dog's  tail,  and  seeing  how  he 
would  act.     They  had  all  heard  of  the  thing,  but 

93 


BOY    LIFE 

none  of  them  had  seen  it;  and  it  was  not  so 
much  a  question  of  whether  you  ought  to  do  a 
thing  that  on  the  verj  face  of  it  would  be  so  much 
fun,  and  if  it  did  not  amuse  the  dog  as  highly  as 
anybody,  could  certainly  do  him  no  harm,  as  it 
was  a  question  of  whose  dog  you  should  get  to 
take  the  dog's  part  in  the  sport.  It  was  held 
that  an  old  dog  would  probably  not  keep  still 
long  enough  for  you  to  tie  the  can  on;  he  would 
have  his  suspicions;  or  else  he  would  not  run 
when  the  can  was  tied  on,  but  very  likely  just  go 
and  lie  down  somewhere.  The  lot  finally  fell  to 
a  young  yellow  dog  belonging  to  one  of  the  boys, 
and  the  owner  at  once  ran  home  to  get  him,  and 
easily  lured  him  back  to  the  other  boys  with  flat- 
teries and  caresses.  The  flatteries  and  caresses 
were  not  needed,  for  a  dog  is  always  glad  to  go 
with  boys,  upon  any  pretext,  and  so  far  from 
thinking  that  he  does  them  a  favor,  he  feels  him- 
self greatly  honored.  But  I  dare  say  the  boy 
had  a  guilty  fear  that  if  his  dog  had  known  why 
he  was  invited  to  be  of  that  party  of  boys,  he 
might  have  pleaded  a  previous  engagement.  As 
it  was,  he  came  joyfully,  and  allowed  the  can  to 
be  tied  to  his  tail  without  misgiving.  If  there 
had  been  any  question  with  the  boys  as  to  whether 
he  would  enter  fully  into  the  spirit  of  the  affair, 
it  must  have  been  instantly  dissipated  by  the 
dog's  behavior  when  he  felt  the  loop  tighten  on 

94 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

his  tail,  and  looked  round  to  see  what  the  matter 
was.  The  boys  hardly  had  a  chance  to  cheer 
him  before  he  flashed  out  of  sight  round  the  cor- 
ner, and  they  hardly  had  time  to  think  before  he 
flashed  into  sight  again  from  the  other  direction. 
He  whizzed  along  the  ground,  and  the  can  hurtled 
in  the  air,  but  there  was  no  other  sound,  and  the 
cheers  died  away  on  the  boys'  lips.  The  boy 
who  owned  the  dog  began  to  cry,  and  the  other 
fellows  began  to  blame  him  for  not  stopping  the 
dog.  But  he  might  as  well  have  tried  to  stop  a 
streak  of  lightning;  the  only  thing  you  could  do 
was  to  keep  out  of  the  dog's  way.  As  an  experi- 
ment it  was  successful  beyond  the  wildest  dreams 
of  its  projectors,  though  it  would  have  been  a 
sort  of  relief  if  the  dog  had  taken  some  other 
road,  for  variety,  or  had  even  reversed  his  course. 
But  he  kept  on  as  he  began,  and  by  a  common 
impulse  the  boys  made  up  their  minds  to  abandon 
the  whole  affair  to  him.  They  all  ran  home  and 
hid,  or  else  walked  about  and  tried  to  ignore  it. 
But  at  this  point  the  grown-up  people  began  to 
be  interested;  the  mothers  came  to  their  doors 
to  see  what  was  the  matter.  Yet  even  the  mothers 
were  powerless  in  a  case  like  that,  and  the  en- 
thusiast had  to  be  left  to  his  fate.  He  was  found 
under  a  barn  at  last,  breathless,  almost  lifeless, 
and  he  tried  to  bite  the  man  who  untied  the  can 
from  his  tail.     Eventually  he  got  well  again,  and 

95 


BOY   LIFE 

lived  to  be  a  solemn  warning  to  the  boys;  he  was 
touchingly  distrustful  of  their  advances  for  a  time, 
but  he  finally  forgot  and  forgave  everything. 
They  did  not  forget,  and  they  never  tried  tying 
a  tin  can  to  a  dog's  tail  again,  among  all  the 
things  they  tried  and  kept  trying.  Once  was 
enough;  and  they  never  even  liked  to  talk  of  it, 
the  sight  was  so  awful.  They  were  really  fond 
of  the  dog,  and  if  they  could  have  thought  he 
would  take  the  matter  so  seriously,  they  would 
not  have  tried  to  have  that  kind  of  fun  with  him. 
It  cured  them  of  ever  wanting  to  have  that  kind 
of  fun  with  any  dog. 

TOPS 

As  the  weather  softened,  tops  came  in  some 
weeks  after  marbles  went  out,  and  just  after  foot- 
races were  over,  and  a  little  before  swimming 
began.  At  first  the  boys  bought  their  tops  at 
the  stores,  but  after  a  while  the  boy  whose  father 
had  the  turning-shop  on  the  Hydraulic  learned 
to  turn  their  tops,  and  did  it  for  nothing,  which 
was  cheaper  than  buying  tops,  especially  as  he 
furnished  the  wood,  too,  and  you  only  had  to 
get  the  metal  peg  yourself.  I  believe  he  was  the 
same  boy  who  wanted  to  be  a  pirate  and  ended 
by  inventing  a  steam-governor.  He  was  very  in- 
genious, and  he  knew  how  to  turn  a  top  out  of 

96 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

beech  or  maple  that  would  outspin  anything  you 
could  get  in  a  store.  The  boys  usually  chose  a 
firm,  smooth  piece  of  sidewalk,  under  one  of  the 
big  trees  in  the  Smith  neighborhood,  and  spun 
their  tops  there.  A  fellow  launched  his  top  into 
the  ring,  and  the  rest  waited  till  it  began  to  go  to 
sleep — that  is,  to  settle  in  one  place,  and  straight- 
en up  and  spin  silently,  as  if  standing  still.  Then 
any  fellow  had  a  right  to  peg  at  it  with  his  top, 
and  if  he  hit  it,  he  won  it;  and  if  he  split  it,  as 
sometimes  happened,  the  fellow  that  owned  it 
had  to  give  him  a  top.  The  boys  came  with 
their  pockets  bulged  out  with  tops,  but  before 
long  they  had  to  go  for  more  tops  to  that  boy 
who  could  turn  them.  From  this  it  was  but  an- 
other step  to  go  to  the  shop  with  him  and  look  on 
while  he  turned  the  tops;  and  then  in  process  of 
time  the  boys  discovered  that  the  smooth  floor 
of  the  shop  was  a  better  place  to  fight  tops  than 
the  best  piece  of  sidewalk.  They  would  have 
given  whole  Saturdays  to  the  sport  there,  but 
when  they  got  to  holloing  too  loudly  the  boy's 
father  would  come  up,  and  then  they  would  all 
run.  It  was  considered  mean  in  him,  but  the 
boy  himself  was  awfully  clever,  and  the  first  thing 
the  fellows  knew  they  were  back  there  again. 
Some  few  of  the  boys  had  humming-tops,  but 
though  these  pleased  by  their  noise,  they  were 
not  much  esteemed,  and  could  make  no  head 
7  97 


BOY    LIFE 

against  the  good  old  turnip-shaped  tops,  soHd 
and  weighty,  that  you  could  wind  up  with  a 
stout  cotton  cord,  and  launch  with  perfect  aim 
from  the  flat  button  held  between  your  fore- 
finger and  middle  finger.  Some  of  the  boys  had 
a  very  pretty  art  in  the  twirl  they  gave  the  top, 
and  could  control  its  course,  somewhat  as  a  skil- 
ful pitcher  can  govern  that  of  a  baseball. 


KITES 

I  do  not  know  why  a  certain  play  went  out, 
but  suddenly  the  fellows  who  had  been  playing 
ball,  or  marbles,  or  tops,  would  find  themselves 
playing  something  else.  Kites  came  in  just  about 
the  time  of  the  greatest  heat  in  summer,  and 
lasted  a  good  while;  but  could  not  have  lasted 
as  long  as  the  heat,  which  began  about  the  first 
of  June,  and  kept  on  well  through  September; 
no  play  could  last  so  long  as  that,  and  I  suppose 
kite-flying  must  have  died  into  swimming  after 
the  Fourth  of  July.  The  kites  were  of  various 
shapes:  bow  kites,  two-stick  kites,  and  house 
kites.  A  bow  kite  could  be  made  with  half  a 
barrel  hoop  carried  over  the  top  of  a  cross,  but  it 
was  troublesome  to  make,  and  it  did  not  fly  very 
well,  and  somehow  it  was  thought  to  look  baby- 
ish;   but  it  was  held  in  greater  respect  than  the 

98 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

two-stick  kite,  which  only  the  smallest  boys  played 
with,  and  which  was  made  by  fastening  two  sticks 
in  the  form  of  a  cross.  Any  fellow  more  than 
six  years  old  who  appeared  on  the  Commons 
with  a  two-stick  kite  would  have  been  met  with 
jeers,  as  a  kind  of  girl. 

The  favorite  kite,  the  kite  that  balanced  best, 
took  the  wind  best,  and  flew  best,  and  that 
would  stand  all  day  when  you  got  it  up, 
was  the  house  kite,  which  was  made  of  three 
sticks,  and  shaped  nearly  in  the  form  of  the  gable 
of  a  gambrel-roofed  house,  only  smaller  at  the 
base  than  at  the  point  where  the  roof  would 
begin.  The  outline  of  all  these  kites  was  given, 
and  the  sticks  stayed  in  place  by  a  string  car- 
ried taut  from  stick  to  stick,  which  was  notched 
at  the  ends  to  hold  it;  sometimes  the  sticks  were 
held  with  a  tack  at  the  point  of  crossing,  and 
sometimes  they  were  mortised  into  one  another; 
but  this  was  apt  to  weaken  them.  The  frame 
was  laid  down  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  and  the  paper 
was  cut  an  inch  or  two  larger,  and  then  pasted 
and  folded  over  the  string.  Most  of  the  boys 
used  a  paste  made  of  flour  and  cold  water;  but 
my  boy  and  his  brother  could  usually  get  paste 
from  the  printing-office;  and  when  they  could 
not  they  would  make  it  by  mixing  flour  and 
water  cream-thick,  and  slowly  boiling  it.  That 
was  a  paste  that  would  hold  till  the  cows  came 

99 


BOY   LIFE 

home,  the  boys  said,  and  my  boy  was  courted 
for  his  skill  in  making  it.  But  after  the  kite 
was  pasted,  and  dried  in  the  sun,  or  behind  the 
kitchen  stove,  if  you  were  in  very  much  of  a 
hurry  (and  you  nearly  always  were),  it  had  to 
be  hung,  with  belly-bands  and  tail-bands;  that 
is,  with  strings  carried  from  stick  to  stick  over 
the  face  and  at  the  bottom,  to  attach  the  cord  for 
flying  it  and  to  fasten  on  the  tail  by.  This  took 
a  good  deal  of  art,  and  unless  it  were  well  done 
the  kite  would  not  balance,  but  would  be  always 
pitching  and  darting.  Then  the  tail  had  to  be 
of  just  the  right  weight;  if  it  was  too  heavy  the 
kite  kept  sinking,  even  after  you  got  it  up  where 
otherwise  it  would  stand;  if  too  light,  the  kite 
would  dart,  and  dash  itself  to  pieces  on  the 
ground.  A  very  pretty  tail  was  made  by  tying 
twists  of  paper  across  a  string  a  foot  apart,  till 
there  were  enough  to  balance  the  kite;  but  this 
sort  of  tail  was  apt  to  get  tangled,  and  the  best 
tail  was  made  of  a  long  streamer  of  cotton  rags, 
with  a  gay  tuft  of  dog-fennel  at  the  end.  Dog- 
fennel  was  added  or  taken  away  till  just  the 
right  weight  was  got;  and  when  this  was  done, 
after  several  experimental  tests,  the  kite  was 
laid  flat  on  its  face  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  or 
on  a  long  stretch  of  smooth  grass;  the  bands 
were  arranged,  and  the  tail  stretched  carefully 
out  behind,  where  it  would  not  catch  on  bushes. 

100 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

You  unwound  a  great  length  of  twine,  running 
backward,  and  letting  the  twine  slip  swiftly 
through  your  hands  till  you  had  run  enough 
out;  then  you  seized  the  ball,  and  with  one  look 
over  your  shoulder  to  see  that  all  was  right, 
started  swiftly  forward.  The  kite  reared  itself 
from  the  ground,  and  swaying  gracefully  from 
side  to  side,  rose  slowly  into  the  air,  with  its  long 
tail  climbing  after  it  till  the  fennel  tuft  swung 
free.  If  there  was  not  much  surface  wind  you 
might  have  to  run  a  little  way,  but  as  soon  as  the 
kite  caught  the  upper  currents  it  straightened 
itself,  pulled  the  twine  taut,  and  steadily  mounted, 
while  you  gave  it  more  and  more  twine;  if  the 
breeze  was  strong,  the  cord  burned  as  it  ran 
through  your  hands;  till  at  last  the  kite  stood 
still  in  the  sky,  at  such  a  height  that  the  cord 
holding  it  sometimes  melted  out  of  sight  in  the 
distance. 

If  it  was  a  hot  July  day  the  sky  would  be  full  of 
kites,  and  the  Commons  would  be  dotted  over 
with  boys  holding  them,  or  setting  them  up,  or 
winding  them  in,  and  all  talking  and  screaming 
at  the  tops  of  their  voices  under  the  roasting  sun. 
One  might  think  that  kite-flying,  at  least,  could  be 
carried  on  quietly  and  peaceably;  but  it  was  not. 
Besides  the  wild  debate  of  the  rival  excellences  of 
the  different  kites,  there  were  always  quarrels 
from  getting  the  strings  crossed;    for,  as  the  boys 

lOI 


BOY   LIFE 

got  their  kites  up,  they  drew  together  for  company 
and  for  an  easier  comparison  of  their  merits.  It 
was  only  a  mean  boy  who  would  try  to  cross  an- 
other fellow's  string;  but  sometimes  accidents 
would  happen;  two  kites  would  become  entangled 
and  both  would  have  to  be  hauled  in,  while  their 
owners  cried  and  scolded,  and  the  other  fellows 
cheered  and  laughed.  Now  and  then  the  tail  of 
a  kite  would  part  midway,  and  then  the  kite 
would  begin  to  dart  violently  from  side  to  side, 
and  then  to  whirl  round  and  round  in  swifter  and 
narrower  circles  till  it  dashed  itself  to  the  ground. 
Sometimes  the  kite-string  would  break,  and  the 
kite  would  waver  and  fall  like  a  bird  shot  in  the 
wing;  and  the  owner  of  the  kite,  and  all  the 
fellows  who  had  no  kites,  would  run  to  get  it 
where  it  came  down,  perhaps  a  mile  or  more  away. 
It  usually  came  down  in  a  tree,  and  they  had  to 
climb  for  it;  but  sometimes  it  lodged  so  high  that 
no  one  could  reach  it;  and  then  it  was  slowly 
beaten  and  washed  away  in  the  winds  and  rains, 
and  its  long  tail  left  streaming  all  winter  from  the 
naked  bough  where  it  had  caught.  It  was  so 
good  for  kites  on  the  Commons,  because  there 
were  no  trees  there,  and  not  even  fences,  but  a 
vast  open  stretch  of  level  grass,  which  the  cows 
and  geese  kept  cropped  to  the  earth;  and  for  the 
most  part  the  boys  had  no  trouble  with  their  kites 
there.     Some   of  them   had   paper   fringe   pasted 

102 


GAMES  AND    PASTIMES 

round  the  edges  of  their  kites;  this  made  a  fine 
ratthng  as  the  kite  rose,  and  when  the  kite  stood, 
at  the  end  of  its  string,  you  could  hear  the  hum- 
ming if  you  put  your  ear  to  the  twine.  But  the 
most  fun  was  sending  up  messengers.  The  mes- 
sengers were  cut  out  of  thick  paper,  with  a  slit  at 
one  side,  so  as  to  slip  over  the  string,  which  would 
be  pulled  level  long  enough  to  give  the  messenger 
a  good  start,  and  then  released,  when  the  wind 
would  catch  the  little  circle,  and  drive  it  up  the 
long  curving  incline  till  it  reached  the  kite. 

It  was  thought  a  great  thing  in  a  kite  to  pull, 
and  it  was  a  favor  to  another  boy  to  let  him  take 
hold  of  your  string  and  feel  how  your  kite  pulled. 
If  you  wanted  to  play  mumble-the-peg,  or  any- 
thing, while  your  kite  was  up,  you  tied  it  to  a 
stake  in  the  ground,  or  gave  it  to  some  other 
fellow  to  hold;  there  were  always  lots  of  fellows 
eager  to  hold  it.  But  you  had  to  be  careful  how 
you  let  a  little  fellow  hold  it;  for,  if  it  was  a  very 
powerful  kite,  it  would  take  him  up.  It  was  not 
certain  just  how  strong  a  kite  had  to  be  to  take  a 
small  boy  up,  and  nobody  had  ever  seen  a  kite  do 
it,  but  everybody  expected  to  see  it. 

THE   BUTLER   GUARDS 

The  Butler  Guards  were  the  finest  military 
company  in  the  world.     I   do  not  believe  there 

103 


BOY   LIFE 

was  a  fellow  in  the  Boy's  Town  who  even  tried  to 
imagine  a  more  splendid  body  of  troops:  when 
they  talked  of  them,  as  they  did  a  great  deal,  it 
was  simply  to  revel  in  the  recognition  of  their 
perfection.  I  forget  just  what  their  uniform  was, 
but  there  were  white  pantaloons  in  it,  and  a 
tuft  of  white-and-red  cockerel  plumes  that  almost 
covered  the  front  of  the  hat,  and  swayed  when  the 
soldier  walked,  and  blew  in  the  wind.  I  think  the 
coat  was  gray,  and  the  skirts  were  buttoned  back 
with  buff,  but  I  will  not  be  sure  of  this;  and  some- 
how I  cannot  say  how  the  officers  differed  from  the 
privates  in  dress;  it  was  impossible  for  them  to 
be  more  magnificent.  They  walked  backward  in 
front  of  the  platoons,  with  their  swords  drawn,  and 
held  in  their  white-gloved  hands  at  hilt  and  point, 
and  kept  holloing,  "Shoulder-r-r — arms!  Carry — 
arms!  Present — arms!"  and  then  faced  round, 
and  walked  a  few  steps  forward,  till  they  could 
think  of  something  else  to  make  the  soldiers  do. 
Every  boy  intended  to  belong  to  the  Butler 
Guards  when  he  grew  up;  and  he  would  have 
given  anything  to  be  the  drummer  or  the  marker. 
These  were  both  boys,  and  they  were  just  as 
much  dressed  up  as  the  Guards  themselves,  only 
they  had  caps  instead  of  hats  with  plumes.  It 
was  strange  that  the  other  fellows  somehow  did 
not  know  who  these  boys  were;  but  they  never 
knew,   or   at   least   my   boy   never   knew.     They 

104 


THE    BUTLER    GUARDS 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

thought  more  of  the  marker  than  of  the  drummer; 
for  the  marker  carried  a  little  flag,  and  when  the 
officers  holloed  out,  "By  the  left  flank — left! 
Wheel!"  he  set  his  flag  against  his  shoulder,  and 
stood  marking  time  with  his  feet  till  the  soldiers 
all  got  by  him,  and  then  he  ran  up  to  the  front 
rank,  with  the  flag  fluttering  behind  him.  The 
fellows  used  to  wonder  how  he  got  to  be  marker, 
and  to  plan  how  they  could  get  to  be  markers  in 
other  companies,  if  not  in  the  Butler  Guards. 
There  were  other  companies  tha't  used  to  come 
to  town  on  the  Fourth  of  July  and  Muster  Day, 
from  smaller  places  round  about;  and  some  of 
them  had  richer  uniforms:  one  company  had 
blue  coats  with  gold  epaulets,  and  gold  braid 
going  down  in  loops  on  the  sides  of  their  legs; 
all  the  soldiers,  of  course,  had  braid  straight 
down  the  outer  seams  of  their  pantaloons.  One 
Muster  Day  a  captain  of  one  of  the  country  com- 
panies came  home  with  my  boy's  father  to  din- 
ner; he  was  in  full  uniform,  and  he  put  his 
plumed  helmet  down  on  the  entry  table  just  like 
any  other  hat. 

There  was  a  company  of  Germans,  or  Dutch- 
men, as  the  boys  always  called  them;  and  the 
boys  believed  that  they  each  had  hay  in  his  right 
shoe,  and  straw  in  his  left,  because  a  Dutchman 
was  too  dumb,  as  the  boys  said  for  stupid,  to 
know  his  feet  apart  any  other  way;    and  that  the 

107 


BOY   LIFE 

Dutch  officers  had  to  call  out  to  the  men  when 
they  were  marching,  "Up  mit  de  hay-foot,  down 
mit  de  straw-foot  —  links,  links,  links T^  (left, 
left,  left!).  But  the  boys  honored  even  these  im- 
perfect intelligences  so  much  in  their  quality  of 
soldiers  that  they  would  any  of  them  have  been 
proud  to  be  marker  in  the  Dutch  company;  and 
they  followed  the  Dutchmen  round  in  their  march 
as  fondly  as  any  other  body  of  troops.  Of  course, 
school  let  out  when  there  was  a  regular  muster, 
and  the  boys  gave  the  whole  day  to  it;  but  I  do 
not  know  just  when  the  Muster  Day  came.  They 
fired  the  cannon  a  good  deal  on  the  river-bank, 
and  they  must  have  camped  somewhere  near  the 
town,  though  no  recollection  of  tents  remained  in 
my  boy's  mind.  He  believed  with  the  rest  of  the 
boys  that  the  right  way  to  fire  the  cannon  was  to 
get  it  so  hot  you  need  not  touch  it  oflT,  but  just 
keep  your  thumb  on  the  touch-hole,  and  take  it 
away  when  you  wanted  the  cannon  to  go  off. 
Once  he  saw  the  soldiers  ram  the  piece  full  of 
dog-fennel  on  top  of  the  usual  charge,  and  then 
he  expected  the  cannon  to  burst.  But  it  only 
roared  away  as  usual. 

PETS 

As  there  are  no  longer  any  Whig  boys  in  the 
world,  the  coon  can  no  longer  be  kept  anywhere 

1 08 


GAMES   AND  rPASTIMES 

as  a  political  emblem,  I  dare  say.  Even  in  my 
boy's  time  the  boys  kept  coons  just  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  it,  and  without  meaning  to  elect  Whig 
governors  and  presidents  with  them.  I  do  not 
know  how  they  got  them — they  traded  for  them, 


perhaps,  with  fellows  in  the  country  that  had 
caught  them,  or  perhaps  their  fathers  bought 
them  in  market;  some  people  thought  they  were 
very  good  to  eat,  and,  like  poultry  and  other 
things  for  the  table,  they  may  have  been  brought 
alive  to  market.  But,  anyhow,  when  a  boy  had 
a  coon,  he  had  to  have  a  store-box  turned  open 
side  down  to  keep  it  in,  behind  the  house;  and 
he  had  to  have  a  little  door  in  the  box  to  pull  the 
coon  out  through  when  he  wanted  to  show  it  to 
other  boys,  or  to  look  at  it  himself,  which  he  did 

109 


BOY   LIFE 

forty  or  fifty  times  a  day,  when  he  first  got  it. 
He  had  to  have  a  small  collar  for  the  coon,  and  a 
little  chain,  because  the  coon  would  gnaw  through 
a  string  in  a  minute.  The  coon  himself  never 
seemed  to  take  much  interest  in  keeping  a  coon, 
or  to  see  much  fun  or  sense  in  it.  He  liked  to 
stay  inside  his  box,  where  he  had  a  bed  of  hay, 
and  whenever  the  boy  pulled  him  out,  he  did 
his  best  to  bite  the  boy.  He  had  no  tricks;  his 
temper  was  bad;  and  there  was  nothing  about 
him  except  the  rings  round  his  tail  and  his  po- 
litical principles  that  anybody  could  care  for. 
He  never  did  anything  but  bite,  and  try  to  get 
away,  or  else  run  back  into  his  box,  which 
smelled,  pretty  soon,  like  an  animal-show;  he 
would  not  even  let  a  fellow  see  him  eat. 

My  boy's  brother  had  a  coon,  which  he  kept  a 
good  while,  at  a  time  when  there  was  no  election, 
for  the  mere  satisfaction  of  keeping  a  coon. 
During  his  captivity  the  coon  bit  his  keeper  re- 
peatedly through  the  thumb,  and  upon  the  whole 
seemed  to  prefer  him  to  any  other  food;  I  do 
not  really  know  what  coons  eat  in  a  wild  state, 
but  this  captive  coon  tasted  the  blood  of  nearly 
that  whole  family  of  children.  Besides  biting  and 
getting  away,  he  never  did  the  slightest  thing 
worth  remembering;  as  there  was  no  election, 
he  did  not  even  take  part  in  a  Whig  procession. 
He  got  away  two  or  three  times.     The  first  thing 

I  lO 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

his  owner  would  know  when  he  pulled  the  chain 
out  was  that  there  was  no  coon  at  the  end  of  it, 
and  then  he  would  have  to  poke  round  the  in- 
side of  the  box  pretty  carefully  with  a  stick,  so 
as  not  to  get  bitten;  after  that  he  would  have 
to  see  which  tree  the  coon  had  gone  up.  It  was 
usually  the  tall  locust-tree  in  front  of  the  house, 
and  in  about  half  a  second  all  the  boys  in  town 
would  be  there,  telling  the  owner  of  the  coon 
how  to  get  him.  Of  course  the  only  way  was 
to  climb  for  the  coon,  which  would  be  out  at 
the  point  of  a  high  and  slender  limb,  and  would 
bite  you  awfully,  even  if  the  limb  did  not  break 
under  you,  while  the  boys  kept  whooping  and 
yelling  and  holloing  out  what  to  do,  and  Tip 
the  dog  just  howled  with  excitement.  I  do  not 
know  how  that  coon  was  ever  caught,  but  I  know 
that  the  last  time  he  got  away  he  was  not  found 
during  the  day,  but  after  nightfall  he  was  dis- 
covered by  moonlight  in  the  locust-tree.  His 
owner  climbed  for  him,  but  the  coon  kept  shift- 
ing about,  and  getting  higher  and  higher,  and  at 
last  he  had  to  be  left  till  morning.  In  the  morn- 
ing he  was   not  there,  nor  anywhere. 

It  had  been  expected,  perhaps,  that  Tip  would 
watch  him,  and  grab  him  if  he  came  down,  and 
Tip  would  have  done  it  probably  if  he  had  kept 
awake.  He  was  a  dog  of  the  greatest  courage, 
and  he  was  especially  fond  of  hunting.     He  had 

III 


BOY    LIFE 

been  bitten  oftener  by  that  coon  than  anybody 
but  the  coon's  owner,  but  he  did  not  care  for 
biting.  He  was  always  getting  bitten  by  rats, 
but  he  was  the  greatest  dog  for  rats  that  there 
almost  ever  was.  The  boys  hunted  rats  with 
him  at  night,  when  they  came  out  of  the  stables 
that  backed  down  to  the  Hydraulic,  for  water; 
and  a  dog  who  liked  above  all  things  to  lie  asleep 
on  the  back-step,  by  day,  and  would  no  more 
think  of  chasing  a  pig  out  of  the  garden  than  he 
would  think  of  sitting  up  all  night  with  a  coon, 
would  get  frantic  about  rats,  and  would  per- 
fectly wear  himself  out  hunting  them  on  land 
and  in  the  water,  and  keep  on  after  the  boys 
themselves  were  tired.  He  was  so  fond  of  hunt- 
ing, anyway,  that  the  sight  of  a  gun  would  drive 
him  about  crazy;  he  would  lick  the  barrel  all 
over,  and  wag  his  tail  so  hard  that  it  would  lift 
his  hind  legs  off  the  ground. 

I  do  not  know  how  he  came  into  that  family, 
but  I  believe  he  was  given  to  it  full  grown  by 
somebody.  It  was  some  time  after  my  boy  failed 
to  buy  what  he  called  a  Confoundland  dog,  from 
a  colored  boy  who  had  it  for  sale,  a  pretty  puppy 
with  white  and  black  spots  which  he  had  quite 
set  his  heart  on;  but  Tip  more  than  consoled  him. 
Tip  was  of  no  particular  breed,  and  he  had  no 
personal  beauty;  he  was  of  the  color  of  a  mouse 
or  an  elephant,  and  his  tail  was  without  the  small- 

112 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

est  grace;  it  was  smooth  and  round,  but  it  was 
so  strong  that  he  could  pull  a  boy  all  over  the 
town  by  it,  and  usually  did;  and  he  had  the  best, 
and  kindest,  and  truest  ugly  old  face  in  the 
world.  He  loved  the  whole  human  race,  and  as 
a  watch-dog  he  was  a  failure  through  his  trust- 
ful nature;  he  would  no  more  have  bitten  a  per- 
son than  he  would  have  bitten  a  pig;  but  where 
other  dogs  were  concerned,  he  was  a  lion.  He 
might  be  lying  fast  asleep  in  the  back-yard,  and 
he  usually  was,  but  if  a  dog  passed  the  front  of 
the  house  under  a  wagon,  he  would  be  up  and 
after  that  dog  before  you  knew  what  you  were 
about.  He  seemed  to  want  to  fight  country  dogs 
the  worst,  but  any  strange  dog  would  do.  A 
good  half  the  time  he  would  come  off  best;  but, 
however  he  came  off,  he  returned  to  the  back- 
yard with  his  tongue  hanging  out,  and  wagging 
his  tail  in  good-humor  with  all  the  world.  Noth- 
ing could  stop  him,  however,  where  strange  dogs 
were  concerned.  He  was  a  Whig  dog,  of  course, 
as  any  one  could  tell  by  his  name,  which  was 
Tippecanoe  in  full,  and  was  given  him  because 
it  was  the  nickname  of  General  Harrison,  the 
great  Whig  who  won  the  battle  of  Tippecanoe. 
The  boys'  Henry  Clay  Club  used  him  to  pull  the 
little  wagon  that  they  went  about  in  singing  Whig 
songs,  and  he  would  pull  five  or  six  boys,  guided 
simply  by  a  stick  which  he  held  in  his  mouth,  and 
8  113 


BOY   LIFE 

which  a  boy  held  on  either  side  of  him.  But 
if  he  caught  sight  of  a  dog  that  he  did  not  know, 
he  would  drop  that  stick  and  start  for  that  dog 
as  far  off  as  he  could  see  him,  spilling  the  Henry 
Clay  Club  out  of  the  wagon  piecemeal  as  he 
went,  and  never  stopping  till  he  mixed  up  the 
strange  dog  in  a  fight  where  it  would  have  been 
hard  to  tell  which  was  either  champion  and  which 
was  the  club  wagon.  When  the  fight  was  over 
Tip  would  come  smilingly  back  to  the  frag- 
ments of  the  Henry  Clay  Club,  with  pieces  of 
the  vehicle  sticking  about  him,  and  profess  him- 
self, in  a  dog's  way,  ready  to  go  on  with  the 
concert. 

Any  crowd  of  boys  could  get  Tip  to  go  off 
with  them,  in  swimming,  or  hunting,  or  simply 
running  races.  He  was  known  through  the  whole 
town,  and  beloved  for  his  many  endearing  quali- 
ties of  heart.  As  to  his  mind,  it  was  perhaps 
not  much  to  brag  of,  and  he  certainly  had  some 
defects  of  character.  He  was  incurably  lazy, 
and  his  laziness  grew  upon  him  as  he  grew  older, 
till  hardly  anything  but  the  sight  of  a  gun  or  a 
bone  would  move  him.  He  lost  his  interest  in 
politics,  and,  though  there  is  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  he  ever  became  indifferent  to  his  prin- 
ciples, it  is  certain  that  he  no  longer  showed  his 
early  ardor.  He  joined  the  Free-Soil  movement 
in  1848,  and  supported  Van  Buren  and  Adams, 

114 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

but  without  the  zeal  he  had  shown  for  Henry 
Clay.  Once  a  year,  as  long  as  the  family  lived  in 
the  Boy's  Town,  the  children  were  anxious  about 
Tip  when  the  dog-law  was  put  in  force,  and  the 
constables  went  round  shooting  all  the  dogs  that 
were  found  running  at  large  without  muzzles. 
At  this  time,  when  Tip  was  in  danger  of  going 
mad  and  biting  people,  he  showed  a  most  un- 
seasonable activity,  and  could  hardly  be  kept  in 
bounds.  A  dog  whose  sole  delight  at  other  mo- 
ments was  to  bask  in  the  summer  sun,  or  dream 
by  the  winter  fire,  would  now  rouse  himself  to 
an  interest  in  everything  that  was  going  on  in 
the  dangerous  world,  and  make  forays  into  it  at 
all  unguarded  points.  The  only  thing  to  do  was 
to  muzzle  him,  and  this  was  done  by  my  boy's 
brother  with  a  piece  of  heavy  twine,  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  interfere  with  Tip's  happiness  as 
little  as  possible.  It  was  a  muzzle  that  need  not 
be  removed  for  either  eating,  drinking,  or  fight- 
ing; but  it  satisfied  the  law,  and  Tip  always 
came  safely  through  the  dog-days,  perhaps  by 
favor  or  affection  with  the  officers  who  were  so 
inexorable  with  some  dogs. 

While  Tip  was  still  in  his  prime  the  family  of 
children  was  further  enriched  by  the  possession 
of  a  goat;  but  this  did  not  belong  to  the  whole 
family,  or  it  was,  at  least  nominally,  the  property 
of  that  eldest  brother  they  all  looked  up  to.     I 

"5 


BOY   LIFE 

do  not  know  how  they  came  by  the  goat,  any 
more  than  I  know  how  they  came  by  Tip;  I  only 
know  that  there  came  a  time  when  it  was  already 
in  the  family,  and  that  before  it  was  got  rid  of 
it  was  a  presence  there  was  no  mistaking.  No- 
body who  has  not  kept  a  goat  can  have  any  notion 
of  how  many  different  kinds  of  mischief  a  goat 
can  get  into,  without  seeming  to  try,  either,  but 
merely  by  following  the  impulses  of  its  own 
goatishness.  This  one  was  a  nanny-goat,  and 
it  answered  to  the  name  of  Nanny  with  an  in- 
telligence that  was  otherwise  wholly  employed 
in  making  trouble.  It  went  up  and  down  stairs, 
from  cellar  to  garret,  and  in  and  out  of  all  the 
rooms,  like  anybody,  with  a  faint,  cynical  indif- 
ference in  the  glance  of  its  cold  gray  eyes  that 
gave  no  hint  of  its  purposes  or  performances. 
In  the  chambers  it  chewed  the  sheets  and  pillow- 
cases on  the  beds,  and  in  the  dining-room,  if  it 
found  nothing  else,  it  would  do  its  best  to  eat 
the  table-cloth.  Washing-day  was  a  perfect  feast 
for  it,  for  then  it  would  banquet  on  the  shirt- 
sleeves and  stockings  that  dangled  from  the 
clothes-line,  and  simply  glut  itself  with  the  family 
linen  and  cotton.  In  default  of  these  dainties, 
Nanny  would  gladly  eat  a  chip-hat;  she  was  not 
proud;  she  would  eat  a  split-basket,  if  there  was 
nothing  else  at  hand.  Once  she  got  up  on  the 
kitchen  table,  and  had  a  perfect  orgy  with  a  lot 

ii6 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

of  fresh-baked  pumpkin-pies  she  found  there; 
she  cleaned  all  the  pumpkin  so  neatly  out  of  the 
pastry  shells  that,  if  there  had  been  any  more 
pumpkin  left,  they  could  have  been  filled  up 
again,  and  nobody  could  have  told  the  difference. 
The  grandmother,  who  was  visiting  in  the  house 
at  the  time,  declared  to  the  mother  that  it  would 
serve  the  father  and  the  boys  just  right  if  she  did 
fill  these  very  shells  up  and  give  them  to  the  father 
and  the  boys  to  eat.  But  I  believe  this  was  not 
done,  and  it  was  only  suggested  in  a  moment  of 
awful  exasperation,  and  because  it  was  the  father 
who  was  to  blame  for  letting  the  boys  keep  the 
goat.  The  mother  was  always  saying  that  the 
goat  should  not  stay  in  the  house  another  day, 
but  she  had  not  the  heart  to  insist  on  its  banish- 
ment, the  children  were  so  fond  of  it.  I  do  not 
know  why  they  were  fond  of  it,  for  it  never  showed 
them  the  least  affection,  but  was  always  taking 
the  most  unfair  advantages  of  them,  and  it  would 
butt  them  over  whenever  it  got  the  chance.  It 
would  try  to  butt  them  into  the  well  when  they 
leaned  down  to  pull  up  the  bucket  from  the  curb; 
and  if  it  came  out  of  the  house,  and  saw  a  boy 
cracking  nuts  at  the  low  flat  stone  the  children 
had  in  the  back-yard  to  crack  nuts  on,  it  would 
pretend  that  the  boy  was  making  motions  to  in- 
sult it,  and  before  he  knew  what  he  was  about  it 
would   fly  at  him  and   send  him  spinning  head 

117 


BOY    LIFE 

over  heels.  It  was  not  of  the  least  use  in  the 
world,  and  could  not  be,  but  the  children  were 
allowed  to  keep  it  till,  one  fatal  day,  when  the 
mother  had  a  number  of  other  ladies  to  tea,  as 
the  fashion  used  to  be  in  small  towns,  when  they 
sat  down  to  a  comfortable  gossip  over  dainty 
dishes  of  stewed  chicken,  hot  biscuit,  peach- 
preserves,  sweet  tomato-pickles,  and  pound-cake. 
That  day  they  all  laid  off  their  bonnets  on  the 
hall  table,  and  the  goat,  after  demurely  waiting 
and  watching  with  its  faded  eyes,  which  saw 
everything  and  seemed  to  see  nothing,  discerned 
a  golden  opportunity,  and  began  to  make  such 
a  supper  of  bonnet-ribbons  as  perhaps  never  fell 
to  a  goat's  lot  in  life  before.  It  was  detected  in 
its  stolen  joys  just  as  it  had  chewed  the  ribbon 
of  a  best  bonnet  up  to  the  bonnet,  and  was  chased 
into  the  back-yard;  but,  as  it  had  swallowed  the 
ribbon  without  being  able  to  swallow  the  bonnet, 
it  carried  that  with  it.  The  boy  who  specially 
owned  the  goat  ran  it  down  in  a  frenzy  of  horror 
and  apprehension,  and  managed  to  unravel  the 
ribbon  from  its  throat,  and  get  back  the  bonnet. 
Then  he  took  the  bonnet  in  and  laid  it  carefully 
down  on  the  table  again,  and  decided  that  it 
would  be  best  not  to  say  anything  about  the  affair. 
But  such  a  thing  as  that  could  not  be  kept.  The 
goat  was  known  at  once  to  have  done  the  mis- 
chief;  and  this  time  it  was  really  sent  away.     All 

ii8 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

the  children  mourned  it,  and  the  boy  who  owned 
it  the  most  used  to  go  to  the  house  of  the  people 
who  took  it,  and  who  had  a  high  board  fence 
round  their  yard,  and  try  to  catch  sight  of  it 
through  the  cracks.  When  he  called  *' Nanny!" 
it  answered  him  instantly  with  a  plaintive  "Baa!" 
and  then,  after  a  vain  interchange  of  lamenta- 
tions, he  had  to  come  away,  and  console  him- 
self as  he  could  with  the  pets  that  were  left  him. 
But  all  were  trifling  joys,  except  maybe  Tip  and 
Nanny,  compared  with  the  pony  which  the  boys 
owned  in  common,  and  which  was  the  greatest 
thing  that  ever  came  into  their  lives.  I  cannot 
tell  just  how  their  father  came  to  buy  it  for  them, 
or  where  he  got  it;  but  I  dare  say  he  thought 
they  were  about  old  enough  for  a  pony,  and  might 
as  well  have  one.  It  was  a  Mexican  pony,  and 
as  it  appeared  on  the  scene  just  after  the  Mexican 
war,  some  volunteer  may  have  brought  it  home. 
One  volunteer  brought  home  a  Mexican  dog,  that 
was  smooth  and  hairless,  with  a  skin  like  an  ele- 
phant, and  that  was  always  shivering  round  with 
the  cold;  he  was  not  otherwise  a  remarkable 
dog,  and  I  do  not  know  that  he  ever  felt  even 
the  warmth  of  friendship  among  the  boys;  his 
manners  were  reserved  and  his  temper  seemed 
doubtful.  But  the  pony  never  had  any  trouble 
with  the  climate  of  Southern  Ohio  (which  is  in- 
deed hot  enough  to  fry  a  salamander  in  summer); 

119 


BOY    LIFE 

and  though  his  temper  was  no  better  than  other 
ponies',  he  was  perfectly  approachable.  I  mean 
that  he  was  approachable  from  the  side,  for  it 
was  not  well  to  get  where  he  could  bite  you  or 
kick  you.  He  was  of  a  bright  sorrel  color,  and 
he  had  a  brand  on  one  haunch. 

My  boy  had  an  ideal  of  a  pony,  conceived 
from  pictures  in  his  reading- books  at  school, 
that  held  its  head  high  and  arched  its  neck, 
and  he  strove  by  means  of  checks  and  mar- 
tingales to  make  this  real  pony  conform  to  the 
illustrations.  But  it  was  of  no  use;  the  real 
pony  held  his  neck  straight  out  like  a  ewe, 
or,  if  reined  up,  like  a  camel,  and  he  hung  his 
big  head  at  the  end  of  it  with  no  regard  what- 
ever for  the  ideal.  His  caparison  was  another 
mortification  and  failure.  What  the  boy  wanted 
was  an  English  saddle,  embroidered  on  the  mo- 
rocco seat  in  crimson  silk,  and  furnished  with 
shining  steel  stirrups.  What  he  had  was  the 
framework  of  a  Mexican  saddle,  covered  with 
rawhide,  and  cushioned  with  a  blanket;  the  stir- 
rups were  Mexican,  too,  and  clumsily  fashioned 
out  of  wood.  The  boys  were  always  talking 
about  getting  their  father  to  get  them  a  pad,  but 
they  never  did  it,  and  they  managed  as  they  could 
with  the  saddle  they  had.  For  the  most  part 
they  preferred  to  ride  the  pony  barebacked,  for 
then  they  could  ride  him  double,  and  when  they 

120 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

first  got  him  they  all  wanted  to  ride  him  so  much 
that  they  had  to  ride  him  double.  They  kept 
him  going  the  whole  day  long;  but  after  a  while 
they  calmed  down  enough  to  take  him  one  at  a 
time,  and  to  let  him  have  a  chance  for  his 
meals. 

They  had  no  regular  stable,  and  the  father  left 
the  boys  to  fit  part  of  the  cow-shed  up  for  the 
pony,  which  they  did  by  throwing  part  of  the  hen- 
coop open  into  it.  The  pigeon-cots  were  just 
over  his  head,  and  he  never  could  have  complained 
of  being  lonesome.  At  first  everybody  wanted 
to  feed  him  as  well  as  ride  him,  and  if  he  had 
been  allowed  time  for  it  he  might  have  eaten 
himself  to  death,  or  if  he  had  not  always  tried 
to  bite  you  or  kick  you  when  you  came  in  with 
his  corn.  After  a  while  the  boys  got  so  they  for- 
got him,  and  nobody  wanted  to  go  out  and  feed 
the  pony,  especially  after  dark;  but  he  knew  how 
to  take  care  of  himself,  and  when  he  had  eaten 
up  everything  there  was  in  the  cow-shed  he  would 
break  out  and  eat  up  everything  there  was  in 
the  yard. 

The  boys  got  lots  of  good  out  of  him.  When 
you  were  once  on  his  back  you  were  pretty  safe, 
for  he  was  so  lazy  that  he  would  not  think  of 
running  away,  and  there  was  no  danger  unless 
he  bounced  you  off  when  he  trotted;  he  had  a 
hard  trot.     The  boys  wanted  to  ride  him  stand- 

121 


BOY    LIFE 

Ing  up,  like  circus-actors,  and  the  pony  did  not 
mind,  but  the  boys  could  not  stay  on,  though 
they  practised  a  good  deal,  turn  about,  when  the 
other  fellows  were  riding  their  horses,  standing; 
up,  on  the  Commons.  He  was  not  of  much  use 
in  Indian  fights,  for  he  could  seldom  be  lashed 
into  a  gallop,  and  a  pony  that  proposed  to  walk 
through  an  Indian  fight  was  ridiculous.  Still, 
with  the  help  of  imagination,  my  boy  employed 
him  in  some  scenes  of  wild  Arab  life,  and  hurled 
the  Moorish  javelin  from  him  in  mid-career, 
when  the  pony  was  flying  along  at  the  mad  pace 
of  a  canal-boat.  The  pony  early  gave  the  boys 
to  understand  that  they  could  get  very  little  out 
of  him  in  the  way  of  herding  the  family  cow. 
He  would  let  them  ride  him  to  the  pasture,  and 
he  would  keep  up  with  the  cow  on  the  way  home, 
when  she  walked,  but  if  they  wanted  anything 
more  than  that  they  must  get  some  other  pony. 
They  tried  to  use  him  in  carrying  papers,  but 
the  subscribers  objected  to  having  him  ridden 
up  to  their  front  doors  over  the  sidewalk,  and 
they  had  to  give  it  up. 

When  he  became  an  old  story,  and  there  was 
no  competition  for  him  among  the  brothers,  my 
boy  sometimes  took  him  into  the  woods,  and  rode 
him  in  the  wandering  bridle-paths,  with  a  thrill- 
ing sense  of  adventure.  He  did  not  like  to  be 
alone  there,  and  he  oftener  had  the  company  of 

122 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

a  boy  who  was  learning  the  trade  in  his  father's 
printing-office.  This  boy  was  just  between  him 
and  his  elder  brother  in  age,  and  he  was  the 
good  comrade  of  both;  all  the  family  loved  him, 
and  made  him  one  of  them,  and  my  boy  was 
fond  of  him  because  they  had  some  tastes  in 
common  that  were  not  very  common  among  the 
other  boys.  They  liked  the  same  books,  and 
they  both  began  to  write  historical  romances. 
My  boy's  romance  was  founded  on  facts  of  the 
Conquest  of  Granada,  which  he  had  read  of  again 
and  again  in  Washington  Irving,  with  a  pas- 
sionate pity  for  the  Moors,  and  yet  with  pride  in 
the  grave  and  noble  Spaniards.  He  would  have 
given  almost  anything  to  be  a  Spaniard,  and  he 
lived  in  a  dream  of  some  day  sallying  out  upon 
the  Vega  before  Granada,  in  silk  and  steel,  with 
an  Arabian  charger  under  him  that  champed  its 
bit.  In  the  mean  time  he  did  what  he  could  with 
the  family  pony,  and  he  had  long  rides  in  the 
woods  with  the  other  boy,  who  used  to  get  his 
father's  horse  when  he  was  not  using  it  on  Sun- 
day, and  race  with  him  through  the  dangling 
wild  grape-vines  and  pawpaw  thickets,  and  over 
the  reedy  levels  of  the  river,  their  hearts  both 
bounding  with  the  same  high  hopes  of  a  world 
that  could  never  come  true. 


BOY    LIFE 

INDIANS 

There  was  not  a  boy  in  the  Boy's  Town  who 
would  not  gladly  have  turned  from  the  town  and 
lived  in  the  woods  if  his  mother  had  let  him; 
and  in  every  vague  plan  of  running  off  the  forest 
had  its  place  as  a  city  of  refuge  from  pursuit  and 
recapture.  The  pioneer  days  were  still  so  close 
to  those  times  that  the  love  of  solitary  adventure 
which  took  the  boys'  fathers  into  the  sylvan  wastes 
of  the  great  West  might  well  have  burned  in  the 
boys'  hearts;  and  if  their  ideal  of  life  was  the 
free  life  of  the  woods,  no  doubt  it  was  because 
their  near  ancestors  had  lived  it.  At  any  rate, 
that  was  their  ideal,  and  they  were  always  talk- 
ing among  themselves  of  how  they  would  go 
farther  West  when  they  grew  up,  and  be  trappers 
and  hunters.  I  do  not  remember  any  boy  but 
one  who  meant  to  be  a  sailor;  they  lived  too 
hopelessly  far  from  the  sea;  and  I  dare  say  the 
boy  who  invented  the  marine-engine  governor, 
and  who  wished  to  be  a  pirate,  would  just  as  soon 
have  been  a  bandit  of  the  Osage.  In  those  days 
Oregon  had  just  been  opened  to  settlers,  and  the 
boys  all  wanted  to  go  and  live  in  Oregon,  where 
you  could  stand  in  your  door  and  shoot  deer  and 
wild  turkey,  while  a  salmon  big  enough  to  pull 
you  in  was  tugging  away  at  the  line  you  had  set 
in  the  river  that  ran  before  the  log-cabin. 

124 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

If  they  could,  the  boys  would  rather  have  been 
Indians  than  anything  else,  but,  as  there  was 
really  no  hope  of  this  whatever,  they  were  willing 
to  be  settlers,  and  fight  the  Indians.  They  had 
rather  a  mixed  mind  about  them  in  the  mean 
time,  but  perhaps  they  were  not  unlike  other 
idolaters  in  both  fearing  and  adoring  their  idols; 
perhaps  they  came  pretty  near  being  Indians  in 
that,  and  certainly  they  came  nearer  than  they 
knew.  When  they  played  war,  and  the  war  was 
between  the  whites  and  the  Indians,  it  was  al- 
most as  low  a  thing  to  be  white  as  it  was  to  be 
British  when  there  were  Americans  on  the  other 
side;  in  either  case  you  had  to  be  beaten.  The 
boys  lived  in  the  desire,  if  not  the  hope,  of  some 
time  seeing  an  Indian,  and  they  made  the  most 
of  the  Indians  in  the  circus,  whom  they  knew  to 
be  just  white  men  dressed  up;  but  none  of  them 
dreamed  that  what  really  happened  one  day 
could  ever  happen.  This  was  at  the  arrival  of 
several  canal-boat  loads  of  genuine  Indians  from 
the  Wyandot  Reservation  in  the  northwestern 
part  of  the  State,  on  their  way  to  new  lands  be- 
yond the  Mississippi.  The  boys'  fathers  must 
have  known  that  these  Indians  were  coming,  but 
it  just  shows  how  stupid  the  most  of  fathers  are, 
that  they  never  told  the  boys  about  it.  All  at 
once  there  the  Indians  were,  as  if  the  canal-boats 
had  dropped  with  them  out  of  heaven.     There 

125 


BOY    LIFE 

they  were,  crowding  the  decks,  in  their  blankets 
and  moccasins,  braves  and  squaws  and  pap- 
pooses,  standing  about  or  squatting  in  groups, 
not  saying  anything,  and  looking  exactly  like  the 
pictures.  The  squaws  had  the  pappooses  on 
their  backs,  and  the  men  and  boys  had  bows  and 
arrows  in  their  hands;  and  as  soon  as  the  boats 
landed  the  Indians,  all  except  the  squaws  and 
papooses,  came  ashore,  and  went  up  to  the  court- 
house yard,  and  began  to  shoot  with  their  bows 
and   arrows.     It  almost  made  the  boys  crazy. 

Of  course  they  would  have  liked  to  have  the 
Indians  shoot  at  birds,  or  some  game,  but  they 
were  mighty  glad  to  have  them  shoot  at  cents  and 
bits  and  quarters  that  anybody  could  stick  up  in 
the  ground.  The  Indians  would  all  shoot  at  the 
mark  till  some  one  hit  it,  and  the  one  who  hit  it 
had  the  money,  whatever  it  was.  The  boys  ran 
and  brought  back  the  arrows;  and  they  were  so 
proud  to  do  this  that  I  wonder  they  lived  through 
it.  My  boy  was  too  bashful  to  bring  the  Indians 
their  arrows;  he  could  only  stand  apart  and  long 
to  approach  the  filthy  savages,  whom  he  revered; 
to  have  touched  the  border  of  one  of  their  blankets 
would  have  been  too  much.  Some  of  them  were 
rather  handsome,  and  two  or  three  of  the  Indian 
boys  were  so  pretty  that  the  Boy's  Town  boys 
said  they  were  girls.  They  were  of  all  ages,  from 
old,  withered  men  to  children  of  six  or  seven,  but 

126 


ALL    AT    ONCE    THERE    THE    INDIANS    WERE 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

they  were  all  alike  grave  and  unsmiling;  the  old 
men  were  not  a  whit  more  dignified  than  the  chil- 
dren, and  the  children  did  not  enter  into  their 
sport  with  more  zeal  and  ardor  than  the  wrinkled 
sages  who  shared  it.  In  fact  they  were,  old  and 
young  alike,  savages,  and  the  boys  who  looked 
on  and  envied  them  were  savages  in  their  ideal  of 
a  world  where  people  spent  their  lives  in  hunting 
and  fishing  and  ranging  the  woods,  and  never 
grew  up  into  the  toils  and  cares  that  can  alone 
make  men  of  boys.  They  wished  to  escape  these, 
as  many  foolish  persons  do  among  civilized  na- 
tions, and  they  thought  if  they  could  only  escape 
them  they  would  be  happy;  they  did  not  know 
that  they  would  be  merely  savage,  and  that  the 
great  difference  between  a  savage  and  a  civilized 
man  is  work.  They  would  all  have  been  willing 
to  follow  these  Indians  away  into  the  Far  West, 
where  they  were  going,  and  be  barbarians  for 
the  rest  of  their  days;  and  the  wonder  is  that  some 
of  the  fellows  did  not  try  it. 


GUNS 

After  the  red  men  had    flitted   away  like   red 

leaves,   their   memory   remained   with    the    boys, 

and   a  plague  of  bows  and  arrows  raged  among 

them,    and    it    was    a    good    while    before    they 

9  129 


BOY    LIFE 

calmed  down  to  their  old  desire  of  having  a  gun. 
But  they  came  back  to  that  at  last,  for  that 
was  the  normal  desire  of  every  boy  in  the  Boy's 
Town  who  was  not  a  girl-boy,  and  there  were 
mighty  few  girl-boys  there.  Up  to  a  certain 
point  a  pistol  would  do,  especially  if  you  had 
bullet-moulds,  and  could  run  bullets  to  shoot 
out  of  it;  only  your  mother  would  be  sure  to  see 
you  running  them,  and  just  as  likely  as  not  would 
be  so  scared  that  she  would  say  you  must  not 
shoot  bullets.  Then  you  would  have  to  use 
buckshot,  if  you  could  get  them  anywhere  near 
the  right  size,  or  small  marbles;  but  a  pistol  was 
always  a  makeshift,  and  you  never  could  hit  any- 
thing with  it,  not  even  a  board  fence;  it  always 
kicked,  or  burst,  or  something. 

Very  few  boys  ever  came  to  have  a  gun, 
though  they  all  expected  to  have  one.  But 
seven  or  eight  boys  would  go  hunting  with 
one  shot-gun,  and  take  turn-about  shooting; 
some  of  the  little  fellows  never  got  to  shoot 
at  all,  but  they  could  run  and  see  whether  the 
big  boys  had  hit  anything  when  they  fired,  and 
that  was  something.  This  was  my  boy's  priv- 
ilege for  a  long  time  before  he  had  a  gun  of 
his  own,  and  he  went  patiently  with  his  elder 
brother,  and  never  expected  to  fire  the  gun, 
except,  perhaps,  to  shoot  the  load  off  before 
they  got  back  to  town;    they  were  not  allowed 

130 


GAMES  AND   PASTIMES 

to  bring  the  gun  home  loaded.  It  was  a  gun 
that  was  pretty  safe  for  anything  in  front  of  it, 
but  you  never  could  tell  what  it  was  going  to  do. 
It  began  by  being  simply  an  old  gun-barrel, 
which  my  boy's  brother  bought  of  another  boy 
who  was  sick  of  it  for  a  fip,  as  the  half-real  piece 
was  called,  and  it  went  on  till  it  got  a  lock  from 
one  gunsmith  and  a  stock  from  another,  and  was 
a  complete  gun.  But  this  took  time;  perhaps  a 
month;  for  the  gunsmiths  would  only  work  at  it 
in  their  leisure;  they  were  delinquent  subscribers, 
and  they  did  it  in  part  pay  for  their  papers.  When 
they  got  through  with  it  my  boy's  brother  made 
himself  a  ramrod  .out  of  a  straight  piece  of  hick- 
ory, or  at  least  as  straight  as  the  gun-barrel, 
which  was  rather  sway-backed,  and  had  a  little 
twist  to  one  side,  so  that  one  of  the  jour  printers 
said  it  was  a  first-rate  gun  to  shoot  round  a  cor- 
ner with.  Then  he  made  himself  a  powder- 
flask  out  of  an  ox-horn  that  he  got  and  boiled  till 
it  was  soft  (it  smelt  the  whole  house  up),  and 
then  scraped  thin  with  a  piece  of  glass;  it  hung 
at  his  side;  and  he  carried  his  shot  in  his  panta- 
loons pocket.  He  went  hunting  with  this  gun 
for  a  good  many  years,  but  he  had  never  shot 
anything  with  it,  when  his  uncle  gave  him  a 
smooth-bore  rifle,  and  he  in  turn  gave  his  gun 
to  my  boy,  who  must  then  have  been  nearly  ten 
years  old. 

131 


BOY    LIFE 

It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  quite  old  enough 
to  have  a  gun;  but  he  was  mortified  the  very 
next  morning  after  he  got  it  by  a  citizen  who 
thought  differently.  He  had  risen  at  daybreak 
to  go  out  and  shoot  kildees  on  the  Common, 
and  he  was  hurrying  along  with  his  gun  on 
his  shoulder  when  the  citizen  stopped  him  and 
asked  him  what  he  was  going  to  do  with  that 
gun.  He  said  to  shoot  kildees,  and  he  added 
that  it  was  his  gun.  This  seemed  to  surprise  the 
citizen  even  more  than  the  boy  could  have  wished. 
He  asked  him  if  he  did  not  think  he  was  a  pretty 
small  boy  to  have  a  gun;  and  he  took  the  gun 
from  him,  and  examined  it  thoughtfully,  and  then 
handed  it  back  to  the  boy,  who  felt  himself  getting 
smaller  all  the  time.  The  man  went  his  way 
without  saying  anything  more,  but  his  behavior 
was  somehow  so  sarcastic  that  the  boy  had  no 
pleasure  in  his  sport  that  morning;  partly,  per- 
haps, because  he  found  no  kildees  to  shoot  at 
on  the  Common.  He  only  fired  off  his  gun  once 
or  twice  at  a  fence,  and  then  he  sneaked  home 
with  it  through  alleys  and  by-ways,  and  when- 
ever he  met  a  person  he  hurried  by  for  fear  the 
person  would  find  him  too  small  to  have  a  gun. 

Afterward  he  came  to  have  a  bolder  spirit  about 
it,  and  he  went  hunting  with  it  a  good  deal.  It 
was  a  very  curious  kind  of  gun;  you  had  to  snap 
a  good   many  caps  on  it,  sometimes,  before  the 

132 


GAMES  AND    PASTIMES 

load  would  go  off;  and  sometimes  it  would  hang 
fire,  and  then  seem  to  recollect  itself,  and  go  off, 
maybe,  just  when  you  were  going  to  take  it  down 
from  your  shoulder.  The  barrel  was  so  crooked 
that  it  could  not  shoot  straight,  but  this  was  not 
the  only  reason  why  the  boy  never  hit  anything 
with  it.  He  could  not  shut  his  left  eye  and  keep 
his  right  eye  open;  so  he  had  to  take  aim  with 
both  eyes,  or  else  with  the  left  eye,  which  was 
worse  yet,  till  one  day  when  he  was  playing  shinny 
(or  hockey)  at  school,  and  got  a  blow  over  his 
left  eye  from  a  shinny-stick.  At  first  he  thought 
his  eye  was  put  out;  he  could  not  see  for  the 
blood  that  poured  into  it  from  the  cut  above  it. 
He  ran  homeward  wild  with  fear,  but  on  the  way 
he  stopped  at  a  pump  to  wash  away  the  blood,  and 
then  he  found  his  eye  was  safe.  It  suddenly  came 
into  his  mind  to  try  if  he  could  not  shut  that  eye 
now,  and  keep  the  right  one  open.  He  found  that 
he  could  do  it  perfectly;  by  help  of  his  handker- 
chief, he  stanched  his  wound,  and  made  himself 
presentable,  with  4:he  glassy  pool  before  the  pump 
for  a  mirror,  and  went  joyfully  back  to  school. 
He  kept  trying  his  left  eye,  to  make  sure  it  had 
not  lost  its  new-found  art,  and  as  soon  as  school 
was  out  he  hurried  home  to  share  the  joyful 
news  with  his  family. 

He  went  hunting  the  very  next  Saturday,  and 
at  the    first    shot    he    killed    a    bird.      It    was   a 

^33 


BOY    LIFE 

suicidal  sap-sucker,  which  had  suffered  him  to 
steal  upon  it  so  close  that  it  could  not  escape 
even  the  vagaries  of  that  wandering  gun-barrel, 
and  was  blown  into  such  small  pieces  that 
the  boy  could  bring  only  a  few  feathers  of  it 
away.  In  the  evening,  when  his  father  came 
home,  he  showed  him  these  trophies  of  the  chase, 
and  boasted  of  his  exploit  with  the  minutest  de- 
tail. His  father  asked  him  whether  he  had  ex- 
pected to  eat  this  sap-sucker,  if  he  could  have 
got  enough  of  it  together.  He  said  no,  sap- 
suckers  were  not  good  to  eat.  "Then  you  took 
its  poor  little  life  merely  for  the  pleasure  of  kill- 
ing it,"  said  the  father.  *'Was  it  a  great  pleas- 
ure to  see  it  die  .^"  The  boy  hung  his  head  in 
shame  and  silence;  it  seemed  to  him  that  he 
would  never  go  hunting  again.  Of  course  he 
did  go  hunting  often  afterward,  but  his  brother 
and  he  kept  faithfully  to  the  rule  of  never  kill- 
ing anything  that  they  did  not  want  to  eat.  To 
be  sure,  they  gave  themselves  a  wide  range;  they 
were  willing  to  eat  almost  anything  that  they 
could  shoot,  even  blackbirds,  which  were  so 
abundant  and  so  easy  to  shoot.  But  there  were 
some  things  which  they  would  have  thought  it 
not  only  wanton  but  wicked  to  kill,  like  turtle- 
doves, which  they  somehow  believed  were  sacred, 
nor  robins  either,  because  robins  were  hallowed 
by  poetry,  and  they  kept  about  the  house,  and 

134 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

were  almost  tame,  so  that  it  seemed  a  shame  to 
shoot  them.     They  were  very   plentiful,   and   so 
were  the  turtle-doves,  which  used  to  light  on  the, 
Basin  bank,  and  pick  up  the  grain  scattered  there 
from  the  boats  and  wagons. 

There  were  a  good  many  things  you  could  do 
with  a  gun:  you  could  fire  your  ramrod  out  of 
it,  and  see  it  sail  through  the  air;  you  could  fill 
the  muzzle  up  with  water,  on  top  of  a  charge,  and 
send  the  water  in  a  straight  column  at  a  fence. 
The  boys  all  believed  that  you  could  fire  that 
column  of  water  right  through  a  man,  and  they 
always  wanted  to  try  whether  it  would  go  through 
a  cow,  but  they  were  afraid  the  owner  of  the  cow 
would  find  it  out.  There  was  a  good  deal  of 
pleasure  in  cleaning  your  gun  when  it  got  so  foul 
that  your  ramrod  stuck  in  it  and  you  could  hard- 
ly get  it  out.  You  poured  hot  water  into  the 
muzzle  and  blew  it  through  the  nipple,  till  it  be- 
gan to  show  clear;  then  you  wiped  it  dry  with 
soft  rags  wound  on  your  gun-screw,  and  then 
oiled  it  with  greasy  tow.  Sometimes  the  tow 
would  get  loose  from  the  screw,  and  stay  in  the 
barrel,  and  then  you  would  have  to  pick  enough 
powder  in  at  the  nipple  to  blow  it  out.  Of  course 
I  am  talking  of  the  old  muzzle-loading  shot-gun, 
which  I  dare  say  the  boys  never  use  nowadays. 

But  the  great  pleasure  of  all,  in  hunting,  was 
getting  home  tired   and  footsore  in  the  evening, 

135 


BOY    LIFE 

and  smelling  the  supper  almost  as  soon  as  you 
came  in  sight  of  the  house.  There  was  nearly 
always  hot  biscuit  for  supper,  with  steak,  and 
with  coffee  such  as  nobody  but  a  boy's  mother 
ever  knew  how  to  make;  and  just  as  likely  as 
not  there  was  some  kind  of  preserves;  at  any 
rate,  there  was  apple-butter.  You  could  hardly 
take  the  time  to  wash  the  powder-grime  off  your 
hands  and  face  before  you  rushed  to  the  table; 
and  if  you  had  brought  home  a  yellowhammer 
you  left  it  with  your  gun  on  the  back  porch,  and 
perhaps  the  cat  got  it  and  saved  you  the  trouble 
of  cleaning  it.  A  cat  can  clean  a  bird  a  good 
deal  quicker  thr.n  a  boy  can,  and  she  does  not 
hate  to  do  it  half  as  badly. 

Next  to  the  pleasure  of  getting  home  from 
hunting  late  was  the  pleasure  of  starting  early,  as 
my  boy  and  his  brother  sometimes  did,  to  shoot 
ducks  on  the  Little  Reservoir  in  the  fall.  His 
brother  had  an  alarm-clock,  which  he  set  at 
about  four,  and  he  was  up  the  instant  it  rang, 
and  pulling  my  boy  out  of  bed,  where  he  would 
rather  have  stayed  than  shot  the  largest  mallard 
duck  in  the  world.  They  raked  the  ashes  off  the 
bed  of  coals  in  the  fireplace,  and  while  the  em- 
bers ticked  and  bristled,  and  flung  out  little 
showers  of  sparks,  they  hustled  on  their  clothes, 
and  ran  down  the  back  stairs  into  the  yard  with 
their  guns. 

136 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

Tip,  the  dog,  was  already  waiting  for  them 
there,  for  he  seemed  to  know  they  were  going 
that  morning,  and  he  began  whimpering  for 
joy,  and  twisting  himself  sideways  up  against 
them,  and  nearly  wagging  his  tail  off;  and  lick- 
ing their  hands  and  faces,  and  kissing  their  guns 
all  over;  he  was  about  crazy.  When  they  started, 
he  knew  where  they  were  going,  and  he  rushed 
ahead  through  the  silent  little  sleeping  town,  and 
led  the  way  across  the  wide  Commons,  where 
the  cows  lay  in  dim  bulks  on  the  grass,  and  the 
geese  waddled  out  of  his  way  with  wild,  clamor- 
ous cries,  till  they  came  in  sight  of  the  Reservoir. 
Then  Tip  fell  back  with  my  boy  and  let  the  elder 
brother  go  ahead,  for  he  always  had  a  right  to 
the  first  shot;  and  while  he  dodged  down  behind 
the  bank,  and  crept  along  to  the  place  where  the 
ducks  usually  were,  my  boy  kept  a  hold  on  Tip's 
collar,  and  took  in  the  beautiful  mystery  of  the 
early  morning.  The  place  so  familiar  by  day 
was  estranged  to  his  eyes  in  that  pale  light,  and 
he  was  glad  of  old  Tip's  company,  for  it  seemed 
a  time  when  there  might  very  well  be  ghosts 
about.  The  water  stretched  a  sheet  of  smooth, 
gray  silver,  with  little  tufts  of  mist  on  its  surface, 
and  through  these  at  last  he  could  see  the  ducks 
softly  gliding  to  and  fro,  and  he  could  catch  some 
dreamy  sound  from  them.  His  heart  stood  still 
and  then  jumped  wildly  in  his  breast,  as  the  still 

137 


BOY    LIFE 

air  was  startled  with  the  rush  of  wings,  and  the 
water  broke  with  the  plunge  of  other  flocks  ar- 
riving. Then  he  began  to  make  those  bets  with 
himself  that  a  boy  hopes  he  will  lose:  he  bet  that 
his  brother  would  not  hit  any  of  them;  he  bet 
that  he  did  not  even  see  them;  he  bet  that  if 
he  did  see  them  and  got  a  shot  at  them,  they 
would  not  come  back  so  that  he  could  get  a  chance 
himself  to  kill  any.  It  seemed  to  him  that  he 
had  to  wait  an  hour,  and  just  when  he  was  going 
to  hollo,  and  tell  his  brother  where  the  ducks 
were,  the  old  smooth-bore  sent  out  a  red  flash 
and  a  white  puff'  before  he  heard  the  report;  Tip 
tore  loose  from  his  grasp;  and  he  heard  the 
splashing  rise  of  the  ducks,  and  the  hurtling 
rush  of  their  wings;  and  he  ran  forward,  yelling, 
"How  many  did  you  hit?  Where  are  they? 
Where  are  you  ?  Are  they  coming  back  ?  It's 
my  turn  now!"  and  making  an  outcry  that  would 
have  frightened  away  a  fleet  of  ironclads,  but 
much  less  a  flock  of  ducks. 

One  shot  always  ended  the  morning's  sport, 
and  there  were  always  good  reasons  why  this 
shot  never  killed   anything. 

NUTTING 

The  woods  were  pretty  full  of  the  kind  of 
hickory-trees  called  pignuts,  and  the  boys  gath- 

n8 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

ered  the  nuts,  and  even  ate  their  small,  bitter 
kernels;  and  around  the  Poor-House  woods 
there  were  some  shag-barks,  but  the  boys  did 
not  go  for  them  because  of  the  bull  and  the  crazy 
people.  Their  great  and  constant  reliance  in 
foraging  was  the  abundance  of  black  walnuts 
which  grew  everywhere,  along  the  roads  and  on 
the.  river-banks,  as  well  as  in  the  woods  and  the 
pastures.  Long  before  it  was  time  to  go  wal- 
nutting,  the  boys  began  knocking  off  the  nuts  and 
trying  whether  they  were  ripe  enough;  and  just 
as  soon  as  the  kernels  began  to  fill  out,  the  fel- 
lows began  making  walnut  wagons.  I  do  not 
know  why  it  was  thought  necessary  to  have  a 
wagon  to  gather  walnuts,  but  I  know  that  it  was, 
and  that  a  boy  had  to  make  a  new  wagon  every 
year. 

No  boy's  walnut  wagon  could  last  till  the 
next  year;  it  did  very  well  if  it  lasted  till  the 
next  day.  He  had  to  make  it  nearly  all  with  his 
pocket-knife.  He  could  use  a  saw  to  block  the 
wheels  out  of  a  pine  board,  and  he  could  use  a 
hatchet  to  rough  off  the  corners  of  the  blocks, 
but  he  had  to  use  his  knife  to  give  them  any  sort 
of  roundness,  and  they  were  not  very  round  then; 
they  were  apt  to  b©  oval  in  shape,  and  they  al- 
ways wabbled.  He  whittled  the  axles  out  with 
his  knife,  and  he  made  the  hubs  with  it.  He 
could  get  a  tongue  ready-made  if  he  used  a  broom- 

139 


BOY    LIFE 

handle  or  a  hoop-pole,  but  that  had  in  either  case 
to  be  whittled  so  it  could  be  fastened  to  the  wagon; 
he  even  bored  the  linchpin  holes  with  his  knife  if 
he  could  not  get  a  gimlet;  and  if  he  could  not  get 
an  auger,  he  bored  the  holes  through  the  wheels 
with  a  red-hot  poker,  and  then  whittled  them 
large  enough  with  his  knife.  He  had  to  use 
pine  for  nearly  everything,  because  any  other 
wood  was  too  hard  to  whittle;  and  then  the  pine 
was  always  splitting.  It  split  in  the  axles  when 
he  was  making  the  linchpin  holes,  and  the  wheels 
had  to  be  kept  on  by  linchpins  that  were  tied  in; 
the  wheels  themselves  split,  and  had  to  be  strength- 
ened by  slats  nailed  across  the  rifts.  The  wagon- 
bed  was  a  candle-box  nailed  to  the  axles,  and  that 
kept  the  front  axle  tight,  so  that  it  took  the  whole 
width  of  a  street  to  turn  a  very  little  wagon  in 
without  upsetting. 

When  the  wagon  was  all  done,  the  boy  who 
owned  it  started  off  with  his  brothers,  or  some 
other  boys  who  had  no  wagon,  to  gather  walnuts. 
He  started  early  in  the  morning  of  some  bright 
autumn  day  while  the  frost  still  bearded  the  grass 
in  the  back-yard,  and  bristled  on  the  fence-tops 
and  the  roof  of  the  woodshed,  and  hurried  off 
to  the  woods  so  as  to  get  there  before  the  other 
boys  had  got  the  walnuts.  The  best  place  for 
them  was  in  some  woods-pasture  where  the  trees 
stood  free  of  one  another,  and  around  them,  in 

140 


NUTTING 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

among  the  tall,  frosty  grass,  the  tumbled  nuts 
lay  scattered  in  groups  of  twos  and  threes,  or 
fives,  some  still  yellowish-green  in  their  hulls, 
and  some  black,  but  all  sending  up  to  the  nostrils 
of  the  delighted  boy  the  incense  of  their  clean, 
keen,  wild-woody  smell,  to  be  a  memory  for- 
ever. 

The  leaves  had  dropped  from  the  trees  over- 
head, and  the  branches  outlined  themselves  against 
the  blue  sky,  and  dangled  from  their  outer  stems 
clusters  of  the  unfallen  fruit,  as  large  as  oranges, 
and  only  wanting  a  touch  to  send  them  plump- 
ing down  into  the  grass  where  sometimes  their 
fat  hulls  burst,  and  the  nuts  almost  leaped  into 
the  boy's  hands.  The  boys  ran,  some  of  them 
to  gather  the  fallen  nuts,  and  others  to  get  clubs 
and  rocks  to  beat  them  from  the  trees;  one  was 
sure  to  throw  off  his  jacket  and  kick  off  his  shoes 
and  climb  the  tree  to  shake  every  limb  where  a 
walnut  was  still  clinging.  When  they  had  got 
them  all  heaped  up  like  a  pile  of  grape-shot  at 
the  foot  of  the  tree,  they  began  to  hull  them,  with 
blows  of  a  stick,  or  with  stones,  and  to  pick  the 
nuts  from  the  hulls,  where  the  grubs  were  batten- 
ing on  their  assured  ripeness,  and  to  toss  them 
into  a  little  heap,  a  very  little  heap  indeed  com- 
pared with  the  bulk  of  that  they  came  from. 
The  boys  gloried  in  getting  as  much  walnut  stain 
on  their  hands  as  they  could,  for  it  would  not 

143 


BOY    LIFE 

wash  off,  and  it  showed  for  days  that  they  had 
been  walnutting;  sometimes  they  got  to  staining 
one  another's  faces  with  the  juice,  and  pretending 
they  were  Indians. 

The  sun  rose  higher  and  higher,  and  burned 
the  frost  from  the  grass,  and  while  the  boys  work- 
ed and  yelled  and  chattered  they  got  hotter  and 
hotter,  and  began  to  take  off  their  shoes  and 
stockings,  till  every  one  of  them  was  barefoot. 
Then,  about  three  or  four  o'clock,  they  would 
start  homeward,  with  half  a  bushel  of  walnuts  in 
their  wagon,  and  their  shoes  and  stockings  piled 
in  on  top  of  them.  That  is,  if  they  had  good 
luck.  In  a  story,  they  would  always  have  had 
good  luck,  and  always  gone  home  with  half  a 
bushel  of  walnuts;  but  this  is  a  history,  and  so  I 
have  to  own  that  they  usually  went  home  with 
about  two  quarts  of  walnuts  rattling  round  under 
their  shoes  and  stockings  in  the  bottom  of  the 
wagon.  They  usually  had  no  such  easy  time 
getting  them  as  they  always  would  in  a  story; 
they  did  not  find  them  under  the  trees,  or  ready 
to  drop  off,  but  they  had  to  knock  them  off  with 
about  six  or  seven  clubs  or  rocks  to  every  walnut, 
and  they  had  to  pound  the  hulls  so  hard  to  get 
the  nuts  out  that  sometimes  they  cracked  the 
nuts.  That  was  because  they  usually  went  wal- 
nutting before  the  walnuts  were  ripe.  But  they 
made  just  as   much   preparation   for  drying  the 

144 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

nuts  on  the  woodshed  roof  whether  they  got 
half  a  gallon  or  half  a  bushel;  for  they  did  not 
intend  to  stop  gathering  them  till  they  had  two 
or  three  barrels.  They  nailed  a  cleat  across  the 
roof  to  keep  them  from  rolling  off,  and  they 
spread  them  out  thin,  so  that  they  could  look 
more  than  they  were,  and  dry  better.  They  said 
they  were  going  to  keep  them  for  Christmas,  but 
they  had  to  try  pretty  nearly  every  hour  or  so 
whether  they  were  getting  dry,  and  in  about 
three  days  they  were  all  eaten  up. 


THE   FIRE-ENGINES 

There  were  two  fire-engines  in  the  Boy's  Town; 
but  there  seemed  to  be  something  always  the 
matter  with  them,  so  that  they  would  not  work, 
if  there  was  a  fire.  When  there  was  no  fire,  the 
companies  sometimes  pulled  them  up  through 
the  town  to  the  Basin  bank,  and  practised  with 
them  against  the  roofs  and  fronts  of  the  pork- 
houses.  It  was  almost  as  good  as  a  muster  to 
see  the  firemen  in  their  red  shirts  and  black 
trousers,  dragging  the  engine  at  a  run,  two 
and  two  together,  one  on  each  side  of  the 
rope. 

My  boy  would  have  liked  to  speak  to  a  fireman, 
but  he  never  dared;  and  the  foreman  of  the  Nep- 

145 


BOY    LIFE 

tune^  which  was  the  larger  and  feebler  of  the 
engines,  was  a  figure  of  such  worshipful  splendor 
in  his  eyes  that  he  felt  as  if  he  could  not  be  just 
a  common  human  being.  He  was  a  storekeeper, 
to  begin  with,  and  he  was  tall  and  slim,  and  his 
black  trousers  fitted  him  like  a  glove;  he  had 
a  patent-leather  helmet,  and  a  brass  speaking- 
trumpet,  and  he  gave  all  his  orders  through  this. 
It  did  not  make  any  difference  how  close  he  was 
to  the  men,  he  shouted  everything  through  the 
trumpet;  and  when  they  manned  the  brakes  and 
began  to  pump,  he  roared  at  them,  "Down  on 
her,  down  on  her,  boys!"  so  that  you  would  have 
thought  the  Neptune  could  put  out  the  world  if 
it  was  burning  up.  Instead  of  that  there  was 
usually  a  feeble  splutter  from  the  nozzle,  and 
sometimes  none  at  all,  even  if  the  hose  did  not 
break;  it  was  fun  to  see  the  hose  break. 

The  Neptune  was  a  favorite  with  the  boys, 
though  they  believed  that  the  Tremojit  could 
squirt  farther,  and  they  had  a  belief  in  its  quiet 
efficiency  which  was  fostered  by  its  reticence  in 
public.  It  was  small  and  black,  but  the  Nep- 
tune was  large,  and  painted  of  a  gay  color  lit 
up  with  gilding  that  sent  the  blood  leaping  through 
a  boy's  veins.  The  boys  knew  the  Neptune  was 
out  of  order,  but  they  were  always  expecting  it 
would  come  right,  and  in  the  mean  time  they  felt 
that  it  was  an  honor  to  the  town,  and  they  fol- 

146 


GAMES   AND    PASTIMES 

lowed  it  as  proudly  back  to  the  engine-house  after 
one  of  its  magnificent  failures  as  if  it  had  been 
a  magnificent  success.  The  boys  were  always 
making  magnificent  failures  themselves,  and  they 
could  feel  for  the  Neptune. 


IV 

GLIMPSES  OF  THE  LARGER  WORLD 


THE   TRAVELLING  CIRCUS 

'  I  'HE  boys  made  a  very  careful  study  of  the 
-*■  circus  bills,  and  when  the  circus  came  they 
held  the  performance  to  a  strict  account  for  any 
difference  between  the  feats  and  their  represen- 
tation. For  a  fortnight  beforehand  they  worked 
themselves  up  for  the  arrival  of  the  circus  into 
a  fever  of  fear  and  hope,  for  it  was  always  a  ques- 
tion with  a  great  many  whether  they  could  get 
their  fathers  to  give  them  the  money  to  go  in. 
The  full  price  was  two  bits,  and  the  half-price 
was  a  bit,  or  a  Spanish  real,  then  a  commoner 
coin  than  the  American  dime  in  the  West;  and 
every  boy,  for  that  time  only,  wished  to  be  little 
enough  to  look  young  enough  to  go  in  for  a  bit. 
Editors  of  newspapers  had  a  free  ticket  for  every 
member  of  their  families;  and  my  boy  was  sure 
of  going  to  the  circus  from  the  first  rumor  of  its 
coming.  But  he  was  none  the  less  deeply  thrilled 
by  the  coming  event,  and  he  was  up  early  on  the 
morning  of  the  great  day,  to  go  out  and  meet 
the  circus  procession  beyond  the  corporation  line. 
I  do  not  really  know  how  boys  live  through  the 
151 


BOY    LIFE 

wonder  and  the  glory  of  such  a  sight.  Once  there 
were  two  chariots — one  held  the  band  in  red- 
and-blue  uniforms,  and  was  drawn  by  eighteen 
piebald  horses;  and  the  other  was  drawn  by  a 
troop  of  Shetland  ponies,  and  carried  in  a  vast 
mythical  sea-shell  little  boys  in  spangled  tights 
and  little  girls  in  the  gauze  skirts  and  wings  of 
fairies.  There  was  not  a  flaw  in  this  splendor  to 
the  young  eyes  that  gloated  on  it,  and  that  fol- 
lowed it  in  rapture  through  every  turn  and  wind- 
ing of  its  course  in  the  Boy's  Town;  nor  in  the 
magnificence  of  the  actors  and  actresses,  who 
came  riding  two  by  two  in  their  circus  dresses 
after  the  chariots,  and  looking  some  haughty  and 
contemptuous,  and  others  quiet  and  even  bored, 
as  if  it  were  nothing  to  be  part  of  such  a  pro- 
cession. The  boys  tried  to  make  them  out  by 
the  pictures  and  names  on  the  bills:  which  was 
Rivers,  the  bareback-rider,  and  which  was  O'Dale, 
the  champion  tumbler;  which  was  the  India- 
rubber  man,  which  the  ring-master,  which  the 
clown. 

Covered  with  dust,  gasping  with  the  fatigue 
of  a  three  hours'  run  beside  the  procession,  but 
fresh  at  heart  as  in  the  beginning,  they  ar- 
rived with  it  on  the  Commons,  where  the  tent- 
wagons  were  already  drawn  up,  and  the  ring  was 
made,  and  mighty  men  were  driving  the  iron- 
headed  tent-stakes,   and   stretching  the   ropes  of 

152 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   LARGER   WORLD 

the  great  skeleton  of  the  pavilion  which  they  were 
just  going  to  clothe  with  canvas.  The  boys  were 
not  allowed  to  come  anywhere  near,  except  three 
or  four  who  got  leave  to  fetch  water  from  a  neigh- 
boring well,  and  thought  themselves  richly  paid 
with  half-price  tickets.  The  other  boys  were 
proud  to  pass  a  word  with  them  as  they  went  by 
with  their  brimming  buckets;  fellows  who  had 
money  to  go  in  would  have  been  glad  to  carry 
water  just  for  the  glory  of  coming  close  to  the 
circus  men.  They  stood  about  in  twos  and 
threes,  and  lay  upon  the  grass  in  groups  debating 
whether  a  tan-bark  ring  was  better  than  a  saw- 
dust ring;  there  were  different  opinions.  They 
came  as  near  the  wagons  as  they  dared,  and  looked 
at  the  circus  horses  munching  hay  from  the  tail- 
boards, just  like  common  horses.  The  wagons 
were  left  standing  outside  of  the  tent;  but  when 
it  was  up,  the  horses  were  taken  into  the  dressing- 
room,  and  then  the  boys,  with  many  a  backward 
look  at  the  wide  spread  of  canvas,  and  the  flags 
and  streamers  floating  over  it  from  the  centre- 
pole  (the  centre-pole  was  revered  almost  like  a 
distinguished  personage),  ran  home  to  dinner  so 
as  to  get  back  good  and  early,  and  be  among  the 
first  to  go  in. 

All  round,  before  the  circus  doors  were  open, 
the  doorkeepers  of  the  side-shows  were  invit- 
ing  people   to   come   in   and   see  the  giants   and 

153 


BOY    LIFE 

fat  woman  and  boa  -  constrictors,  and  there 
were  stands  for  peanuts  and  candy  and  lemon- 
ade; the  vendors  cried,  "Ice-cold  lemonade, 
from  fifteen  hundred  miles  under  ground!  Walk 
up,  roll  up,  tumble  up,  any  way  you  get  up!" 
The  boys  thought  this  brilliant  drolling,  but  they 
had  no  time  to  listen  after  the  doors  were  open, 
and  they  had  no  money  to  spend  on  side-shows 
or  dainties  anyway.  Inside  the  tent  they  found 
it  dark  and  cool,  and  their  hearts  thumped  in 
their  throats  with  the  wild  joy  of  being  there; 
they  recognized  one  another  with  amaze,  as  if 
they  had  not  met  for  years,  and  the  excitement 
kept  growing  as  other  fellows  came  in.  It  was 
lots  of  fun,  too,  watching  the  country-jakes,  as 
the  boys  called  the  farmer-folk,  and  seeing  how 
green  they  looked,  and  now  some  of  them  tried 
to  act  smart  with  the  circus  men  that  came  round 
with  oranges  to  sell.  But  the  great  thing  was 
to  see  whether  fellows  that  said  they  were  going 
to  hook  in  really  got  in.  The  boys  held  it  to  be 
a  high  and  creditable  thing  to  hook  into  a  show 
of  any  kind,  but  hooking  into  a  circus  was  some- 
thing that  a  fellow  ought  to  be  held  in  special 
honor  for  doing.  He  ran  great  risks,  and  if  he 
escaped  the  vigilance  of  the  massive  circus  man 
who  patrolled  the  outside  of  the  tent  with  a  cow- 
hide and  a  bulldog,  perhaps  he  merited  the  fame 
he  was  sure  to  win. 

154 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   LARGER   WORLD 

I  do  not  know  where  boys  get  some  of  the 
notions  of  moraHty  that  govern  them.  These 
notions  are  Hke  the  sports  and  plays  that  a  boy 
leaves  off  as  he  gets  older  to  the  boys  that  are 
younger.  He  outgrows  them,  and  other  boys 
grow  into  them,  and  then  outgrow  them  as  he  did. 
Perhaps  they  come  down  to  the  boyhood  of  our 
time  from  the  boyhood  of  the  race,  and  the  un- 
written laws  of  conduct  may  have  prevailed  among 
the  earliest  Aryans  on  the  plains  of  Asia  that  I  now 
find  so  strange  in  a  retrospect  of  the  Boy's  Town. 

The  standard  of  honor  there  was,  in  a  cer- 
tain way,  very  high  among  the  boys;  they 
would  have  despised  a  thief  as  he  deserved,  and 
I  cannot  remember  one  of  them  who  might  not 
have  been  safely  trusted.  None  of  them  would 
have  taken  an  apple  out  of  a  market-wagon,  or 
stolen  a  melon  from  a  farmer  who  came  to  town 
with  it;  but  they  would  all  have  thought  it  fun, 
if  not  right,  to  rob  an  orchard  or  hook  a  water- 
melon out  of  a  patch.  This  would  have  been  a 
foray  into  the  enemy's  country,  and  the  fruit  of 
the  adventure  would  have  been  the  same  as  the 
plunder  of  a  city,  or  the  capture  of  a  vessel  be- 
longing to  him  on  the  high  seas.  In  the  same 
way,  if  one  of  the  boys  had  seen  a  circus  man 
drop  a  quarter,  he  would  have  hurried  to  give  it 
back  to  him,  but  he  would  only  have  been  proud 
to  hook  into  the  circus  man's  show,  and  the  other 

155 


BOY    LIFE 

fellows  would  have  been  proud  of  his  exploit,  too, 
as  something  that  did  honor  to  them  all.  As  a 
person  who  enclosed  bounds  and  forbade  tres- 
pass, the  circus  man  constituted  himself  the  enemy 
of  every  boy  who  respected  himself,  and  chal- 
lenged him  to  practise  any  sort  of  strategy.  There 
was  not  a  boy  in  the  crowd  that  my  boy  went 
with  who  would  have  been  allowed  to  hook  into 
a  circus  by  his  parents;  yet  hooking  in  was  an 
ideal  that  was  cherished  among  them,  that  was 
talked  of,  and  that  was  even  sometimes  attempted, 
though  not  often.  Once,  when  a  fellow  really 
hooked  in,  and  joined  the  crowd  that  had  ignobly 
paid,  one  of  the  fellows  could  not  stand  it.  He 
asked  him  just  how  and  where  he  got  in,  and 
then  he  went  to  the  door,  and  got  back  his  money 
from  the  doorkeeper  upon  the  plea  that  he  did 
not  feel  well;  and  in  five  or  ten  minutes  he  was 
back  among  the  boys,  a  hero  of  such  moral 
grandeur  as  would  be  hard  to  describe.  Not  one 
of  the  fellows  saw  him  as  he  really  was — a  little 
lying,  thievish  scoundrel.  Not  even  my  boy  saw 
him  so,  though  he  had  on  some  other  point  of 
personal   honesty  the   most   fantastic   scruples. 

The  boys  liked  to  be  at  the  circus  early  so  as 
to  make  sure  of  the  grand  entry  of  the  performers 
into  the  ring,  where  they  caracoled  round  on 
horseback,  and  gave  a  delicious  foretaste  of  the 
wonders  to   come.     The   fellows  were   united   in 

156 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE    LARGER   WORLD 

this,  but  upon  other  matters  feeling  varied — some 
liked  tumbling  best;  some  the  slack-rope;  some 
bareback-riding;  some  the  feats  of  tossing  knives 
and  balls  and  catching  them.  There  never  was 
more  than  one  ring  in  those  days;  and  you  were 
not  tempted  to  break  your  neck  and  set  your  eyes 
forever  askew,  by  trying  to  watch  all  the  things 
that  went  on  at  once  in  two  or  three  rings. 

The  boys  did  not  miss  the  smallest  feats  of  any 
performance,  and  they  enjoyed  them  every  one, 
not  equally,  but  fully.  They  had  their  prefer- 
ences, of  course,  as  I  have  hinted;  and  one  of  the 
most  popular  acts  was  that  where  a  horse  has 
been  trained  to  misbehave,  so  that  nobody  can 
mount  him;  and  after  the  actors  have  tried  him, 
the  ring-master  turns  to  the  audience,  and  asks 
if  some  gentleman  among  them  wants  to  try  it. 
Nobody  stirs,  till  at  last  a  tipsy  country-jake  is 
seen  making  his  way  down  from  one  of  the  top 
seats  toward  the  ring.  He  can  hardly  walk,  he 
is  so  drunk,  and  the  clown  has  to  help  him  across 
the  ring-board,  and  even  then  he  trips  and  rolls 
over  on  the  sawdust,  and  has  to  be  pulled  to  his 
feet.  When  they  bring  him  up  to  the  horse,  he 
falls  against  it;  and  the  little  fellows  think  he  will 
certainly  get  killed.  But  the  big  boys  tell  the  lit- 
tle fellows  to  shut  up  and  watch  out.  The  ring- 
master and  the  clown  manage  to  get  the  country- 
jake  on  to  the  broad  platform  on  the  horse's  back. 


BOY    LIFE 

and  then  the  ring-master  cracks  his  whip,  and 
the  two  supes  who  have  been  holding  the  horse's 
head  let  go,  and  the  horse  begins  cantering  round 
the  ring.  The  little  fellows  are  just  sure  the 
country-jake  is  going  to  fall  off,  he  reels  and 
totters  so;  but  the  big  boys  tell  them  to  keep 
watching  out;  and  pretty  soon  the  country-jake 
begins  to  straighten  up.  He  begins  to  unbutton 
his  long  gray  overcoat,  and  then  he  takes  it  off 
and  throws  it  into  the  ring,  where  one  of  the  supes 
catches  it.  Then  he  sticks  a  short  pipe  into  his 
mouth,  and  pulls  on  an  old  wool  hat,  and  flourishes 
a  stick  that  the  supe  throws  to  him,  and  you  see 
that  he  is  an  Irishman  just  come  across  the  sea; 
and  then  off  goes  another  coat,  and  he  comes  out 
a  British  soldier  in  white  duck  trousers  and  red 
coat.  That  comes  off,  and  he  is  an  American 
sailor,  with  his  hands  on  his  hips,  dancing  a  horn- 
pipe. Suddenly  away  flash  wig  and  beard  and 
false-face,  the  pantaloons  are  stripped  off  with 
the  same  movement,  the  actor  stoops  for  the  reins 
lying  on  the  horse's  neck,  and  fames  Rivers,  the 
greatest  three-horse  rider  in  the  world,  nimbly 
capers  on  the  broad  pad,  and  kisses  his  hand  to 
the  shouting  and  cheering  spectators  as  he  dashes 
from  the  ring  past  the  braying  and  bellowing 
brass-band  into  the  dressing-room! 

The  big  boys  have  known  all  along  that  he  was 
not  a  real  country-jake;    but  when  the  trained 

158 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   LARGER   WORLD 

mule  begins,  and  shakes  everybody  off,  just  like 
the  horse,  and  another  country-jake  gets  up,  and 
offers  to  bet  that  he  can  ride  that  mule,  nobody 
can  tell  whether  he  is  a  real  country-jake  or  not. 
This  is  always  the  last  thing  in  the  performance, 
and  the  boys  have  seen  with  heavy  hearts  many 
signs  openly  betokening  the  end  which  they  knew 
was  at  hand.  The  actors  have  come  out  of  the 
dressing-room  door,  some  in  their  every-day  clothes, 
and  some  with  just  overcoats  on  over  their  circus- 
dresses,  and  they  lounge  about  near  the  band- 
stand watching  the  performance  in  the  ring. 
Some  of  the  people  are  already  getting  up  to  go 
out,  and  stand  for  this  last  act,  and  will  not  mind 
the  shouts  of  "Down  in  front!  Down  there!" 
which  the  boys  eagerly  join  in,  to  eke  out  their 
bliss  a  little  longer  by  keeping  away  even  the 
appearance  of  anything  transitory  in  it.  The 
country-jake  comes  stumbling  awkwardly  into 
the  ring,  but  he  is  perfectly  sober,  and  he  boldly 
leaps  astride  the  mule,  which  tries  all  its  arts  to 
shake  him  off,  plunging,  kicking,  rearing.  He 
sticks  on,  and  everybody  cheers  him,  and  the 
owner  of  the  mule  begins  to  get  mad  and  to  make 
it  do  more  things  to  shake  the  country-jake  off. 
At  last,  with  one  convulsive  spring,  it  flings  him 
from  its  back,  and  dashes  into  the  dressing-room, 
while  the  country-jake  picks  himself  up  and 
vanishes  among  the  crowd. 

159 


BOY    LIFE 

A  man  mounted  on  a  platform  in  the  ring  is 
imploring  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  to  keep  their 
seats,  and  to  buy  tickets  for  the  negro-minstrel 
entertainment  which  is  to  follow,  but  which  is 
not  included  in  the  price  of  admission.  The 
boys  would  like  to  stay,  but  they  have  not  the 
money,  and  they  go  out  clamoring  over  the  per- 
formance, and  trying  to  decide  which  was  the 
best  feat.  As  to  which  was  the  best  actor,  there 
is  never  any  question;  it  is  the  clown,  who  showed 
by  the  way  he  turned  a  double  somersault  that  he 
can  do  anything,  and  who  chooses  to  be  clown 
simply  because  he  is  too  great  a  creature  to  enter 
into  rivalry  with  the  other  actors. 

There  will  be  another  performance  in  the  even- 
ing, with  real  fights  outside  between  the  circus 
men  and  the  country-jakes,  and  perhaps  some  of 
the  Basin  rounders,  but  the  boys  do  not  expect 
to  come;  that  would  be  too  much.  The  boy's 
brother  once  stayed  away  in  the  afternoon,  and 
went  at  night  with  one  of  the  jour  printers;  but 
he  was  not  able  to  report  that  the  show  was  better 
than  it  was  in  the  afternoon.  He  did  not  get 
home  till  nearly  ten  o'clock,  though,  and  he  saw 
the  sides  of  the  tent  dropped  before  the  people 
got  out;  that  was  a  great  thing;  and  what  was 
greater  yet,  and  reflected  a  kind  of  splendor  on 
the  boy  at  second  hand,  was  that  the  jour  printer 
and  the  clown  turned  out  to  be  old  friends.    After 

1 60 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   LARGER   WORLD 

the  circus,  the  boy  actually  saw  them  standing 
near  the  centre-pole  talking  together;  and  the 
next  day  the  jour  showed  the  grease  that  had 
dripped  on  his  coat  from  the  candles.  Otherwise 
the  boy  might  have  thought  it  was  a  dream,  that 
some  one  he  knew  had  talked  on  equal  terms  with 
the  clown.  The  boys  were  always  intending  to 
stay  up  and  see  the  circus  go  out  of  town,  and 
they  would  have  done  so,  but  their  mothers 
would  not  let  them.  This  may  have  been  one 
reason  why  none  of  them  ever  ran  off  with  a  circus. 
As  soon  as  a  circus  had  been  in  town,  the  boys 
began  to  have  circuses  of  their  own,  and  to  prac- 
tise for  them.  Everywhere  you  could  see  boys 
upside  down,  walking  on  their  hands  or  stand- 
ing on  them  with  their  legs  dangling  over,  or 
stayed  against  house  walls.  It  was  easy  to  stand 
on  your  head;  one  boy  stood  on  his  head  so  much 
that  he  had  to  have  it  shaved,  in  the  brain-fever 
that  he  got  from  standing  on  it;  but  that  did  not 
stop  the  other  fellows.  Another  boy  fell  head 
downward  from  a  rail  where  he  was  skinning- 
the-cat,  and  nearly  broke  his  neck,  and  made  it 
so  sore  that  it  was  stiff  ever  so  long.  Another 
boy,  who  was  playing  Samson,  almost  had  his  leg 
torn  off  by  the  fellows  that  were  pulling  at  it 
with  a  hook;  and  he  did  have  the  leg  of  his  panta- 
loons torn  off.  Nothing  could  stop  the  boys  but 
time,  or  some  other  play  coming  in;  and  circuses 
u  i6i 


BOY    LIFE 

lasted  a  good  while.  Some  of  the  boys  learned  to 
turn  hand-springs;  anybody  could  turn  cart- 
wheels; one  fellow,  across  the  river,  could  just 
run  along  and  throw  a  somersault  and  light  on 
his  feet;  lots  of  fellows  could  light  on  their  backs; 
but  if  you  had  a  spring-board,  or  shavings  under 
a  bank,  like  those  by  the  turning-shop,  you  could 
practise  for  somersaults   pretty  safely. 

All  the  time  you  were  practising  you  were  form- 
ing your  circus  company.  The  great  trouble  was 
not  that  any  boy  minded  paying  five  or  ten  pins 
to  come  in,  but  that  so  many  fellows  wanted  to 
belong  there  were  hardly  any  left  to  form  an 
audience.  You  could  get  girls,  but  even  as 
spectators  girls  were  a  little  too  despicable;  they 
did  not  know  anything;  they  had  no  sense;  if  a 
fellow  got  hurt  they  cried.  Then  another  thing 
was,  where  to  have  the  circus.  Of  course  it  was 
simply  hopeless  to  think  of  a  tent,  and  a  boy's 
circus  was  very  glad  to  get  a  barn.  The  bov 
whose  father  owned  the  barn  had  to  get  it  for  the 
circus  without  his  father  knowing  it;  and  just  as 
likely  as  not  his  mother  would  hear  the  noise  and 
come  out  and  break  the  whole  thing  up  while 
you  were  in  the  very  middle  of  it.  Then  there 
were  all  sorts  of  anxieties  and  perplexities  about 
the  dress.  You  could  do  something  by  turning 
your  roundabout  inside  out,  and  rolling  your 
trousers  up  as  far  as  they  would  go;    but  what  a 

162 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE    LARGER    WORLD 

fellow  wanted  to  make  him  a  real  circus-actor 
was  a  long  pair  of  white  cotton  stockings,  and  I 
never  knew  a  fellow  that  got  a  pair;  I  heard  of 
many  a  fellow  who  was  said  to  have  got  a  pair; 
but  when  you  came  down  to  the  fact,  they  van- 
ished like  ghosts  when  you  try  to  verify  them. 
I  believe  the  fellows  always  expected  to  get  them 


■■■■'.  /  ^ 


out  of  a  bureau-drawer  or  the  clothes-line  at 
home,  but  failed.  In  most  other  ways,  a  boy's 
circus  was  always  a  failure,  like  most  other  things 
boys  undertake.  They  usually  broke  up  under 
the  strain  of  rivalry;  everybody  wanted  to  be  the 
clown  or  ring-master;  or  else  the  boy  they  got 
the  barn  of  behaved  badly,  and  went  into  the 
house  crying,  and  all  the  fellows  had  to  run. 


PASSING   SHOWS 


There  were  only  two  kinds  of  show  known  by 
that  name  in  the  Boy's  Town:   a  nigger  show,  or 

163 


BOY    LIFE 

a  performance  of  burnt-cork  minstrels;  and  an 
animal  show,  or  a  strolling  menagerie;  and  the 
boys  always  meant  a  menagerie  when  they  spoke 
of  a  show,  unless  they  said  just  what  sort  of  show. 
The  only  perfect  joy  on  earth  in  the  way  of  an 
entertainment,  of  course,  was  a  circus,  but  after 
the  circus  the  show  came  unquestionably  next. 
It  made  a  processional  entry  into  the  town  almost 
as  impressive  as  the  circus's,  and  the  boys  went 
out  to  meet  it  beyond  the  corporation  line  in  the 
same  way.  It  always  had  two  elephants,  at  least, 
and  four  or  five  camels,  and  sometimes  there  was 
a  giraflPe.  These  headed  the  procession,  the 
elephants  in  the  very  front,  with  their  keepers  at 
their  heads,  and  then  the  camels  led  by  halters 
dangling  from  their  sneering  lips  and  contemptu- 
ous noses.  After  these  began  to  come  the  show- 
wagons,  with  pictures  on  their  sides,  very  flattered 
portraits  of  the  wild  beasts  and  birds  inside; 
lions  first,  then  tigers  (never  meaner  than  Royal 
Bengal  ones,  which  the  boys  understood  to  be  a 
superior  breed),  then  leopards,  then  pumas  and 
panthers;  then  bears,  then  jackals  and  hyenas; 
then  bears  and  wolves;  then  kangaroos,  musk- 
oxen,  deer,  and  such  harmless  cattle;  and  then 
ostriches,  emus,  lyre-birds,  birds-of-Paradise,  and 
all  the  rest. 

From  time  to  time  the   boys   ran    back   from 
the  elephants  and  camels  to  get  what  good  they 

164 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE    LARGER   WORLD 

could  out  of  the  scenes  in  which  these  hidden 
wonders  were  dramatized  in  acts  of  rapine  or 
the  chase,  but  they  always  came  forward  to  the 
elephants  and  camels  again.  Even  with  them 
they  had  to  endure  a  degree  of  denial,  for  although 
you  could  see  most  of  the  camels'  figures,  the  ele- 
phants were  so  heavily  draped  that  it  was  a  kind 
of  disappointment  to  look  at  them.  The  boys 
kept  as  close  as  they  could,  and  came  as  near 
getting  under  the  elephants'  feet  as  the  keepers 
would  allow;  but,  after  all,  they  were  driven  off 
a  good  deal  and  had  to  keep  stealing  back.  They 
gave  the  elephants  apples  and  bits  of  cracker  and 
cake,  and  some  tried  to  put  tobacco  into  their 
trunks,  though^  they  knew  very  well  that  it  was 
nearly  certain  death  to  do  so;  for  any  elephant 
that  was  deceived  that  way  would  recognize  the 
boy  that  did  it,  and  kill  him  the  next  time  he 
came,  if  it  was  twenty  years  afterward.  The 
boys  used  to  believe  that  the  Miami  bridge  would 
break  down  under  the  elephants  if  they  tried  to 
cross  it,  and  they  would  have  liked  to  see  it  do 
it,  but  no  one  ever  saw  it,  perhaps  because  the 
elephants  always  waded  the  river.  Some  boys  had 
seen  them  wading  it,  and  stopping  to  drink  and 
squirt  the  water  out  of  their  trunks.  If  an  ele- 
phant got  a  boy  that  had  given  him  tobacco  into 
the  river,  he  would  squirt  water  on  him  till  he 
drowned  him.     Still,  some  boys  always  tried  to 

165 


BOY    LIFE 

give  the  elephants  tobacco,  just  to  see  how  they 
would  act  for  the  time  being. 

A  show  was  not  so  much  in  favor  as  a  circus, 
because  there  was  so  httle  performance  in  the 
ring.  You  could  go  round  and  look  at  the  ani- 
mals, mostly  very  sleepy  in  their  cages,  but  you 
were  not  allowed  to  poke  them  through  the  bars, 
or  anything;  and  when  you  took  your  seat  there 
was  nothing  much  till  Herr  Driesbach  entered  the 
lions'  cage,  and  began  to  make  them  jump  over 
his  whip.  It  was  some  pleasure  to  see  him  put 
his  head  between  the  jaws  of  the  great  African 
King  of  Beasts,  but  the  lion  never  did  anything 
to  him,  and  so  the  act  wanted  a  true  dramatic 
climax.  The  boys  would  really  rather  have  seen 
a  bareback -rider,  like  James  Rivers,  turn  a 
back-somersault  and  light  on  his  horse's  crupper, 
any  time,  though  they  respected  Hcrr  Driesbach, 
too;  they  did  not  care  much  for  a  woman  who 
once  went  into  the  lions'  cage  and  made  them 
jump  round. 

The  boys  had  their  own  beliefs  about  the  differ- 
ent animals,  and  one  of  these  concerned  the  in- 
appeasable  ferocity  of  the  zebra.  I  do  not  know 
why  the  zebra  should  have  had  this  repute,  for 
he  certainly  never  did  anything  to  deserve  it; 
but,  for  the  matter  of  that,  he  was  like  all  the 
other  animals.  Bears  were  not  much  esteemed, 
but  they  would   have   been   if  they   could   have 

i66 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   LARGER   WORLD 

been  really  seen  hugging  anybody  to  death.  It 
was  always  hoped  that  some  of  the  fiercest  ani- 
mals would  get  away  and  have  to  be  hunted  down, 
and  retaken  after  they  had  killed  a  lot  of  dogs. 
If  the  elephants,  some  of  them,  had  gone  crazy, 
it  would  have  been  something,  for  then  they 
would  have  roamed  up  and  down  the  turnpike 
smashing  buggies  and  wagons,  and  had  to  be  shot 
with  the  six-pound  cannon  that  was  used  to  cele- 
brate the  Fourth  of  July  with. 

Another  thing  that  was  against  the  show  was 
that  the  animals  were  fed  after  it  was  out,  and 
you  could  not  see  the  tigers  tearing  their  prey 
when  the  great  lumps  of  beef  were  thrown  them. 
There  was  somehow  not  so  much  chance  of 
hooking  into  a  show  as  a  circus,  because  the  seats 
did  not  go  all  round,  and  you  could  be  seen  under 
the  cages  as  soon  as  you  got  in  under  the  canvas. 
I  never  heard  of  a  boy  that  hooked  into  a  show; 
perhaps  nobody  ever  tried. 

But  the  great  reason  of  all  was  that  you  could 
not  have  an  animal  show  of  your  own  as  you  could 
a  circus.  You  could  not  get  the  animals;  and  no 
boy  living  could  act  a  camel,  or  a  Royal  Bengal 
tiger,  or  an  elephant  so  as  to  look  the  least  like  one. 

Of  course  you  could  have  negro  shows,  and  the 
boys  often  had  them;  but  they  were  not  much 
fun,  and  you  were  always  getting  the  black  on 
your  shirt-sleeves. 

167 


BOY  LIFE 


THE  THEATRE  COMES  TO  TOWN 

A  great  new  experience  which  now  came  to 
the  boy  was  the  theatre,  which  he  had  sometimes 
heard  his  father  speak  of.  There  had  once  been 
a  theatre  in  the  Boy's  Town,  when  a  stroUing 
company  came  up  from  Cincinnati,  and  opened 
for  a  season  in  an  empty  pork-house.  But  that 
was  a  long  time  ago,  and,  though  he  had  written 
a  tragedy,  all  that  the  boy  knew  of  a  theatre  was 
from  a  picture  in  a  Sunday-school  book  where 
a  stage  scene  was  given  to  show  what  kind  of 
desperate  amusements  a  person  might  come  to 
in  middle  life  if  he  began  by  breaking  the  Sab- 
bath in  his  youth.  His  brother  had  once  been 
taken  to  a  theatre  in  Pittsburg  by  one  of  their 
river-going  uncles,  and  he  often  told  about  it; 
but  my  boy  formed  no  conception  of  the  beauti- 
ful reality  from  his  accounts  of  a  burglar  who 
jumped  from  a  roof  and  was  chased  by  a  watch- 
man with  a  pistol  up  and  down  a  street  with 
houses  painted  on  a  curtain. 

The  company  which  came  to  the  Boy's  Town 
in  his  time  was  again  from  Cincinnati,  and  it 
was  under  the  management  of  the  father  and 
mother  of  two  actresses,  afterward  famous,  who 
were  then  children,  just  starting  upon  their  ca- 
reer.    These  pretty  little  creatures  took  the  lead- 

i68 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   LARGER   WORLD 

ing  parts  in  Bomhastes  Furioso  the  first  night  my 
boy  ever  saw  a  play,  and  he  instantly  fell  impar- 
tially in  love  with  both  of  them,  and  tacitly  re- 
mained their  abject  slave  for  a  great  while  after. 
When  the  smaller  of  them  came  out  with  a  large 
pair  of  stage  boots  in  one  hand  and  a  drawn  sword 
in  the  other,  and  said: 

"Whoever  dares  these  boots  displace 
Shall  meet  Bombastes  face  to  face," 

if  the  boy  had  not  already  been  bereft  of  his 
senses  by  the  melodrama  preceding  the  burlesque, 
he  must  have  been  transported  by  her  beauty, 
her  grace,  her  genius.  He,  indeed,  gave  her  and 
her  sister  his  heart,  but  his  mind  was  already  gone, 
rapt  from  him  by  the  adorable  pirate  who  fought 
a  losing  fight  with  broadswords,  two  up  and  two 
down — click-click,  click-click — and  died  all  over 
the  deck  of  the  pirate  ship  in  the  opening  piece. 
This  was  called  the  Beacon  of  Deaths  and  the  scene 
represented  the  forecastle  of  the  pirate  ship  with 
a  lantern  dangling  from  the  rigging,  to  lure  un- 
suspecting merchantmen  to  their  doom.  After- 
ward the  boy  remembered  nothing  of  the  story, 
but  a  scrap  of  the  dialogue  meaninglessly  re- 
mained with  him;  and  when  the  pirate  captain 
appeared  with  his  bloody  crew  and  said,  hoarsely, 
"Let  us  go  below  and  get  some  brandy!"  the  boy 

169 


BOY    LIFE 

would  have  bartered  all  his  hopes  of  bliss  to  have 
been  that  abandoned  ruffian.  In  fact,  he  always 
liked,  and  longed  to  be,  the  villain,  rather  than 
any  other  person  in  the  play,  and  he  so  glutted 
himself  with  crime  of  every  sort  in  his  tender 
years  at  the  theatre  that  he  afterward  came  to  be 
very  tired  of  it,  and  avoided  the  plays  and  novels 
that  had  very  marked  villains  in  them. 

He  was  in  an  ecstasy  as  soon  as  the  curtain 
rose  that  night,  and  he  lived  somewhere  out  of 
his  body  as  long  as  the  playing  lasted,  which  was 
well  on  to  midnight;  for  in  those  days  the  theatre 
did  not  meanly  put  the  public  off  with  one  play, 
but  gave  it  a  heartful  and  its  money's  worth  with 
three.  On  his  first  night  my  boy  saw  The  Beacon 
of  Deathy  Bombastes  Furioso,  and  Black-Eyed 
Susan,  and  he  never  afterward  saw  less  than  three 
plays  each  night,  and  he  never  missed  a  night, 
as  long  as  the  theatre  languished  in  the  unfriend- 
ly air  of  that  mainly  Calvinistic  community,  where 
the  theatre  was  regarded  by  most  good  people  as 
the  eighth  of  the  seven  deadly  sins.  The  whole 
day  long  he  dwelt  in  a  dream  of  it  that  blotted 
out,  or  rather  consumed  with  more  effulgent 
brightness,  all  the  other  day-dreams  he  had 
dreamed  before,  and  his  heart  almost  burst  with 
longing  to  be  a  villain  like  those  villains  on  the 
stage,  to  have  a  mustache  —  a  black  mustache — 
such  as  they  wore  at  a  time  when  every  one  off 

170 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   LARGER   WORLD 

the  stage  was  clean  shaven,  and  somehow  to  end 
bloodily,  murderously,  as  became  a  villain. 

I  dare  say  this  was  not  quite  a  wholesome  frame 
of  mind  for  a  boy  of  ten  years;  but  I  do  not  de- 
fend it;  I  only  portray  it.  Being  the  boy  he  was, 
he  was  destined  somehow  to  dwell  half  the  time 
in  a  world  of  dreamery;  and  I  have  tried  to  ex- 
press how,  when  he  had  once  got  enough  of  vil- 
lany,  he  reformed  his  ideals  and  rather  liked 
virtue. 

THE   WORLD   OPENED    BY   BOOKS 

Every  boy  is  two  or  three  boys,  or  twenty  or 
thirty  different  kinds  of  boys  in  one;  he  is  all 
the  time  living  many  lives  and  forming  manv 
characters;  but  it  is  a  good  thing  if  he  can  keep 
one  life  and  one  character  when  he  gets  to  be  a 
man.  He  may  turn  out  to  be  like  an  onion  when 
he  is  grown  up,  and  be  nothing  but  hulls,  that 
you  keep  peeling  off,  one  after  another,  till  you 
think  you  have  got  down  to  the  heart,  at  last, 
and  then  you  have  got  down  to  nothing. 

All  the  boys  may  have  been  like  my  boy  in  the 
Boy's  Town,  in  having  each  an  inward  being 
that  was  not  the  least  like  their  outward  being, 
l)ut  that  somehow  seemed  to  be  their  real  self, 
whether  it  truly  was  so  or  not.  But  I  am  certain 
that  this  was  the  case  with  him,  and  that  while 

171 


BOY    LIFE 

he  was  joyfully  sharing  the  wild  sports  and  con- 
forming to  the  savage  usages  of  the  boy's  world 
about  him,  he  was  dwelling  in  a  wholly  different 
world  within  him,  whose  wonders  no  one  else 
knew.  I  could  not  tell  now  these  wonders  any 
more  than  he  could  have  told  them  then;  but  it 
was  a  world  of  dreams,  of  hopes,  of  purposes, 
which  he  would  have  been  more  ashamed  to  avow 
for  himself  than  I  should  be  to  avow  for  him.  It 
was  all  vague  and  vast,  and  it  came  out  of  the 
books  that  he  read,  and  that  filled  his  soul  with 
their  witchery,  and  often  held  him  aloof  with  their 
charm  -in  the  midst  of  the  plays  from  which  they 
could  not  lure  him  wholly  away,  or  at  all  away. 
He  did  not  know  how  or  when  their  enchantment 
began,  and  he  could  hardly  recall  the  names  of 
some  of  them  afterward. 

First  of  them  was  Goldsmith's  History  of 
Greeccy  which  made  him  an  Athenian  of  Per- 
icles' time,  and  Goldsmith's  History  of  Rome, 
which  naturalized  him  in  a  Roman  citizenship 
chiefly  employed  in  slaying  tyrants;  from  the 
time  of  Appius  Claudius  down  to  the  time  of 
Domitian,  there  was  hardly  a  tyrant  that  he 
did  not  slay.  After  he  had  read  these  books, 
not  once  or  twice,  but  twenty  times  over,  his 
father  thought  fit  to  put  into  his  hands  The 
Travels  of  Captain  J  she  in  North  America,  to 
encourage,  or  perhaps  to  test,  his  taste  for  use- 

172 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE    LARGER    WORLD 

ful  reading;  but  this  was  a  failure.  The  cap- 
tain's travels  were  printed  with  long  esses,  and 
the  boy  could  make  nothing  of  them,  for  other 
reasons.     The   fancy   nourished   upon 

"The  glory  that  was  Greece 
And  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome," 

starved  amid  the  robust  plenty  of  the  English- 
man's criticisms  of  our  early  manners  and  cus- 
toms. Neither  could  money  hire  the  boy  to  read 
Malte-Bruns  Geography,  in  three  large  folios,  of 
a  thousand  pages  each,  for  which  there  was  a 
standing  offer  of  fifty  cents  from  the  father,  who 
had  never  been  able  to  read  it  himself. 

But  shortly  after  he  failed  so  miserably  with 
Captain  Ashe,  the  boy  came  into  possession  of  a 
priceless  treasure.  It  was  that  little  treatise  on 
Greek  and  Roman  Mythology  which  I  have  men- 
tioned, and  which  he  must  literally  have  worn  out 
with  reading,  since  no  fragment  of  it  seems  to 
have  survived  his  boyhood.  Heaven  knows  who 
wrote  it  or  published  it;  his  father  bought  it  with 
a  number  of  other  books  at  an  auction,  and  the 
boy,  who  had  about  that  time  discovered  the 
chapter  on  prosody  in  the  back  part  of  his  gram- 
mar, made  poems  from  it  for  years,  and  ap- 
peared in  many  transfigurations,  as  this  and  that 
god  and  demigod  and  hero  upon  imagined  occa- 
sions in  the  Boy's  Town,  to  the  fancied  admira- 

173 


BOY    LIFE 

tion  of  all  the  other  fellows.  I  do  not  know  just 
why  he  wished  to  appear  to  his  grandmother  in  a 
vision;  now  as  Mercury  with  winged  feet,  now 
as  Apollo  with  his  drawn  bow,  now  as  Hercules 
leaning  upon  his  club  and  resting  from  his  Twelve 
Labors.  Perhaps  it  was  because  he  thought  that 
his  grandmother,  who  used  to  tell  the  children 
about  her  life. in  Wales,  and  show  them  the  pict- 
ure of  a  castle  where  she  had  once  slept  when  she 
was  a  girl,  would  appreciate  him  in  these  apotheo- 
ses. If  he  believed  they  would  make  a  vivid 
impression  upon  the  sweet  old  Quaker  lady,  no 
doubt  he  was  right. 

There  was  another  book  which  he  read  about 
this  time,  and  that  was  The  Greek  Soldier.  It 
was  the  story  of  a  young  Greek,  a  glorious  Athe- 
nian, who  had  fought  through  the  Greek  war  of 
independence  against  the  Turks,  and  then  come 
to  America  and  published  the  narrative  of  his 
adventures.  They  fired  my  bo)^  with  a  retro- 
spective longing  to  have  been  present  at  the 
Battle  of  Navarino,  when  the  allied  ships  of  the 
English,  French,  and  Russians  destroyed  the 
Turkish  fleet;  but  it  seemed  to  him  that  he 
could  not  have  borne  to  have  the  allies  impose 
a  king  upon  the  Greeks,  when  they  really  wanted 
a  republic,  and  so  he  was  able  to  console  himself 
for  having  been  absent.  He  did  what  he  could 
in  fighting  the  war  over  again,  and  he  intended 

174 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   LARGER   WORLD 

to  harden  himself  for  the  long  struggle  by  sleep- 
ing on  the  floor,  as  the  Greek  soldier  had  done. 
But  the  children  often  fell  asleep  on  the  floor 
in  the  warmth  of  the  hearth-fire;  and  his  prep- 
aration for  the  patriotic  strife  was  not  distin- 
guishable in  its  practical  eflFect  from  a  reluc- 
tance to  go  to  bed  at  the  right  hour. 

Captain  Riley's  narrative  of  his  shipwreck  on 
the  coast  of  Africa,  and  his  captivity  among  the 
Arabs,  was  a  book  which  my  boy  and  his  brother 
prized  with  a  kind  of  personal  interest,  because 
their  father  told  them  that  he  had  once  seen  a 
son  of  Captain  Riley  when  he  went  to  get  his 
appointment  of  collector  at  Columbus,  and  that 
this  son  was  named  William  Willshire  Riley,  after 
the  good  English  merchant,  William  Willshire, 
who  had  ransomed  Captain  Riley.  William  Will- 
shire seemed  to  them  almost  the  best  man  who 
ever  lived;  though  my  boy  had  secretly  a  greater 
fondness  for  the  Arab,  Sidi  Hamet,  who  was  kind 
to  Captain  Riley  and  kept  his  brother  Seid  from 
ill-treating  him  whenever  he  could.  Probably 
the  boy  liked  him  better  because  the  Arab  was 
more  picturesque  than  the  Englishman.  The 
whole  narrative  was  very  interesting;  it  had  a 
vein  of  sincere  and  earnest  piety  in  it  which  was 
not  its  least  charm,  and  it  was  written  in  a  style 
of  old-fashioned  stateliness  which  was  not  with- 
out its  effect  with  the  boys. 

175 


BOY    LIFE 

Somehow  they  did  not  think  of  the  Arabs  in 
this  narrative  as  of  the  same  race  and  faith  with 
the  Arabs  of  Bagdad  and  the  other  places  in  the 
Arabian  Nights.  They  did  not  think  whether 
these  were  Mohammedans  or  not;  they  natural- 
ized them  in  the  fairy  world  where  all  boys  are 
citizens,  and  lived  with  them  there  upon  the  same 
familiar  terms  as  they  lived  with  Robinson  Cru- 
soe. Their  father  once  told  them  that  Robinson 
Crusoe  had  robbed  the  real  narrative  of  Alexander 
Selkirk  of  the  place  it  ought  to  have  held  in  the 
remembrance  of  the  world;  and  my  boy  had  a 
feeling  of  guilt  in  reading  it,  as  if  he  were  making 
himself  the  accomplice  of  an  impostor. 

He  liked  the  Arabian  Nights^  but  oddly  enough 
these  wonderful  tales  made  no  such  impression 
on  his  fancy  as  the  stories  in  a  wretchedly  in- 
ferior book  made.  He  did  not  know  the  name 
of  this  book,  or  who  wrote  it;  from  which  I 
imagine  that  much  of  his  reading  was  of  the 
purblind  sort  that  ignorant  grown  -  up  people 
do,  without  any  sort  of  literary  vision.  He 
read  this  book  perpetually,  when  he  was  not 
reading  his  Greek  and  Roman  Mythology;  and 
then  suddenly,  one  day,  as  happens  in  child- 
hood with  so  many  things,  it  vanished  out  of  his 
possession  as  if  by  magic.  Perhaps  he  lost  it; 
perhaps  he  lent  it;  at  any  rate  it  was  gone,  and 
he  never  got  it  back,  and  he  never  knew  what 

176 


GLIMPSES  OF  THE   LARGER  WORLD 

book  it  was  till  thirty  years  afterward,  when  he 
picked  up  from  a  friend's  library-table  a  copy  of 
Gesta  Romanoruniy  and  recognized  in  this  collec- 
tion of  old  monkish  legends  the  long-missing 
treasure  of  his  boyhood. 

These  stories,  without  beauty  of  invention, 
without  art  of  construction  or  character,  with- 
out spirituality  in  their  crude  materialization, 
which  were  read  aloud  in  the  refectories  of 
mediaeval  cloisters  while  the  monks  sat  at  meat, 
laid  a  spell  upon  the  soul  of  the  boy  that  gov- 
erned his  life.  He  conformed  his  conduct  to 
the  principles  and  maxims  which  actuated  the 
behavior  of  the  shadowy  people  of  these  dry- 
as-dust  tales;  he  went  about  drunk  with  the 
fumes  of  fables  about  Roman  emperors  that  never 
were,  in  an  empire  that  never  was;  and,  though 
they  tormented  him  by  putting  a  mixed  and  im- 
possible civilization  in  the  place  of  that  he  knew 
from  his  Goldsmith,  he  was  quite  helpless  to  break 
from  their  influence.  He  was  always  expecting 
some  wonderful  thing  to  happen  to  him  as  things 
happened  there  in  fulfilment  of  some  saying  or 
prophecy;  and  at  every  trivial  moment  he  made 
sayings  and  prophecies  for  himself,  which  he 
wished  events  to  fulfil.  One  Sunday  when  he  was 
walking  in  an  alley  behind  one  of  the  stores,  he 
found  a  fur  cap  that  had  probably  fallen  out  of 
the  store-loft  window.  He  ran  home  with  it,  and 
la  177 


BOY   LIFE 

in  his  simple-hearted  rapture  he  told  his  mother 
that  as  soon  as  he  picked  it  up  there  came  into 
his  mind  the  words,  "  He  who  picketh  up  this  cap 
picketh  up  a  fortune,"  and  he  could  hardly  wait 
for  Monday  to  come  and  let  him  restore  the  cap 
to  its  owner  and  receive  an  enduring  prosperity  in 
reward  of  his  virtue.  Heaven  knows  what  form 
he  expected  this  to  take;  but  when  he  found  him- 
self in  the  store,  he  lost  all  courage;  his  tongue 
clove  to  the  roof  of  his  mouth,  and  he  could 
not  utter  a  syllable  of  the  fine  phrases  he  had 
made  to  himself.  He  laid  the  cap  on  the  counter 
without  a  word;  the  storekeeper  came  up  and  took 
it  in  his  hand.  "What's  this  .?"  he  said.  "Why, 
this  is  ours,"  and  he  tossed  the  cap  into  a  loose 
pile  of  hats  by  the  showcase,  and  the  boy  slunk 
out,  cut  to  the  heart  and  crushed  to  the  dust.  It 
was  such  a  cruel  disappointment  and  mortifica- 
tion that  it  was  rather  a  relief  to  have  his  brother 
mock  him,  and  come  up  and  say  from  time  to 
time,  "He  who  picketh  up  this  cap  picketh  up  a 
fortune,"  and  then  split  into  a  jeering  laugh.  At 
least  he  could  fight  his  brother,  and,  when  he 
ran,  could  stone  him;  and  he  could  throw  quads 
and  quoins,  and  pieces  of  riglet  at  the  jour  printers 
when  the  story  spread  to  them,  and  one  of  them 
would  begin,  "He  who  picketh — " 

He  could  not  make  anything  either  of  Byron 
or  Cowper;    and  he  did  not  even  try  to  read  the 

178 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE    LARGER   WORLD 

little  tree-calf  volumes  of  Homer  and  Virgil  which 
his  father  had  in  the  versions  of  Pope  and  Dryden; 
the  small  copper-plates  with  which  they  were 
illustrated  conveyed  no  suggestion  to  him.  After- 
ward he  read  Goldsmith's  Deserted  Village,  and  he 
formed  a  great  passion  for  Pope's  Pastorals,  which 
he  imitated  in  their  easy  heroics;  but  till  he  came 
to  read  Longfellow,  and  Tennyson,  and  Heine, 
he  never  read  any  long  poem  without  more  fatigue 
than  pleasure.  His  father  used  to  say  that  the 
taste  for  poetry  was  an  acquired  taste,  like  the 
taste  for  tomatoes,  and  that  he  would  come  to 
it  yet;  but  he  never  came  to  it,  or  so  much  of  it 
as  some  people  seemed  to  do,  and  he  always  had 
his  sorrowful  misgivings  as  to  whether  they  liked 
it  as  much  as  they  pretended.  I  think,  too,  that 
it  should  be  a  flavor,  a  spice,  a  sweet,  a  delicate 
relish  in  the  high  banquet  of  literature,  and  never 
a  chief  dish;  and  I  should  not  know  how  to  de- 
fend my  boy  for  trying  to  make  long  poems  of 
his  own  at  the  very  time  when  he  found  it  so  hard 
to  read  other  people's  long  poems. 


V 

THE    LAST  OF  A   BOY'S    TOWN 


THE    LAST   OF   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

1\ /lY  boy  was  twelve  years  old,  and  was  already 
■^'^"■■a  swift  compositor,  though  he  was  still  so 
small  that  he  had  to  stand  on  a  chair  to  reach 
the  case  in  setting  type  on  Taylor's  inaugural 
message.  But  what  he  lacked  in  stature  he  made 
up  in  gravity  of  demeanor;  and  he  got  the  name 
of  "The  Old  Man"  from  the  printers  as  soon  as 
he  began  to  come  about  the  office,  which  he  did 
almost  as  soon  as  he  could  walk.  His  first  at- 
tempt in  literature,  an  essay  on  the  vain  and  dis- 
appointing nature  of  human  life,  he  set  up  and 
printed  off  himself  in  his  sixth  or  seventh  year; 
and  the  printing-office  was  in  some  sort  his  home, 
as  well  as  his  school,  his  university.  He  could  no 
more  remember  learning  to  set  type  than  he  could 
remember  learning  to  read;  and  in  after-life  he 
could  not  come  within  smell  of  the  ink,  the  dusty 
types,  the  humid  paper,  of  a  printing-office  with- 
out that  tender  swelling  of  the  heart  which  so 
fondly  responds  to  any  memory-bearing  perfume: 
his  youth,  his  boyhood,  almost  his  infancy  came 
back  to  him  in  it.     He  now  looked  forward  eager- 

183 


BOY    LIFE 

\y  to  helping  on  the  new  paper,  and  somewhat 
proudly  to  living  in  the  larger  place  the  family 
were  going  to.  The  moment  it  was  decided  he 
began  to  tell  the  boys  that  he  was  going  to  live 
in  a  city,  and  he  felt  that  it  gave  him  distinction. 
He  had  nothing  but  joy  in  it,  and  he  did  not 
dream  that  as  the  time  drew  near  it  could  be 
sorrow.  But  when  it  came  at  last,  and  he  was 
to  leave  the  house,  the  town,  the  boys,  he  found 
himself  deathly  homesick. 

The  parting  days  were  days  of  gloom;  the 
parting  was  an  anguish  of  bitter  tears.  Noth- 
ing consoled  him  but  the  fact  that  they  were 
going  all  the  way  to  the  new  place  in  a  canal- 
boat,  which  his  father  chartered  for  the  trip. 
My  boy  and  his  brother  had  once  gone  to  Cin- 
cinnati in  a  canal-boat,  with  a  friendly  captain 
of  their  acquaintance,  and,  though  they  were 
both  put  to  sleep  in  a  berth  so  narrow  that 
when  they  turned  they  fell  out  on  the  floor,  the 
glory  of  the  adventure  remained  with  him,  and 
he  could  have  thought  of  nothing  more  delightful 
than  such  another  voyage.  The  household  goods 
were  piled  up  in  the  middle  of  the  boat,  and  the 
family  had  a  cabin  forward,  which  seemed  im- 
mense to  the  children.  They  played  in  it  and 
ran  races  up  and  down  the  long  canal-boat  roof, 
where  their  father  and  mother  sometimes  put 
their  chairs  and  sat  to  admire  the  scenery. 

184 


THE    LAST   OF   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

They  arrived  safely  at  their  journey's  end,  with- 
out any  sort  of  accident.  They  had  made  the 
whole  forty  miles  in  less  than  two  days,  and  were 
all  as  well  as  when  they  started,  without  having 
suffered  for  a  moment  from  seasickness.  The 
boat  drew  up  at  the  tow-path  just  before  the 
stable  belonging  to  the  house  which  the  father 
had  already  taken,  and  the  whole  family  at  once 
began  helping  the  crew  put  the  things  ashore. 
The  boys  thought  it  would  have  been  a  splen- 
did stable  to  keep  the  pony  in,  only  they  had 
sold  the  pony;  but  they  saw  in  an  instant 
that  it  would  do  for  a  circus  as  soon  as  they 
could  get  acquainted  with  enough  boys  to  have 
one. 

The  strangeness  of  the  house  and  street,  and 
the  necessity  of  meeting  the  boys  of  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  paying  with  his  person  for  his  stand- 
ing among  them,  kept  my  boy  interested  for  a 
time,  and  he  did  not  realize  at  first  how  much 
he  missed  the  Boy's  Town  and  all  the  familiar 
fellowships  there,  and  all  the  manifold  privileges 
of  the  place.  Then  he  began  to  be  very  home- 
sick, and  to  be  torn  with  the  torment  of  a  divided 
love.  His  mother,  whom  he  loved  so  dearly,  so 
tenderly,  was  here,  and  wherever  she  was,  that 
was  home;  and  yet  home  was  yonder,  far  off,  at 
the  end  of  those  forty  inexorable  miles,  where  he 
had   left  his   life-long  mates.     The   first   months 

185 


BOY    LIFE 

there  was  a  dumb  heartache  at  the  bottom  of  every 
pleasure  and  excitement. 

After  a  while  he  was  allowed  to  revisit  the 
Boy's  Town.  It  could  only  have  been  three  or 
four  months  after  he  had  left  it,  but  it  already 
seemed  a  very  long  time;  and  he  figured  himself 
returning  as  stage  heroes  do  to  the  scenes  of  their 
childhood,  after  an  absence  of  some  fifteen  years. 
He  fancied  that  if  the  boys  did  not  find  him  grown, 
they  would  find  him  somehow  changed,  and  that 
he  would  dazzle  them  with  the  light  accumulated 
by  his  residence  in  a  city.  He  was  going  to  stay 
with  his  grandmother,  and  he  planned  to  make  a 
long  stay;  for  he  was  very  fond  of  her,  and  he 
liked  the  quiet  and  comfort  of  her  pleasant  house. 
He  must  have  gone  back  by  the  canal-packet,  but 
his  memory  kept  no  record  of  the  fact,  and  after- 
ward he  knew  only  of  having  arrived,  and  of 
searching  about  in  a  ghostly  fashion  for  his  old 
comrades.  They  may  have  been  at  school;  at 
any  rate,  he  found  very  few  of  them;  and  with 
them  he  was  certainly  strange  enough;  too 
fitrange,  even.  They  received  him  with  a  kind  of 
surprise;  and  they  could  not  begin  playing  to- 
gether at  once  in  the  old  way.  He  went  to  all 
the  places  that  were  so  dear  to  him;  but  he  felt 
in  them  the  same  kind  of  refusal,  or  reluctance, 
that  he  felt  in  the  boys.  His  heart  began  to 
ache   again,   he  did  not  quite    know  why;    only 

1 86 


THE    LAST   OF   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

it  ached.  When  he  went  up  from  his  grand- 
mother's to  look  at  the  Faulkner  house,  he 
realized  that  it  was  no  longer  home,  and  he 
could  not  bear  the  sight  of  it.  There  were 
other  people  living  in  it;  strange  voices  sound- 
ed from  the  open  doors,  strange  faces  peered 
from  the   windows. 

He  came  back  to  his  grandmother's,  bruised 
and  defeated,  and  spent  the  morning  indoors  read- 
ing. After  dinner  he  went  out  again,  and  hunted 
up  that  queer  earth-spirit  who  had  been  so  long 
and  closely  his  only  friend.  He  at  least  was  not 
changed;  he  was  as  unwashed  and  as  unkempt 
as  ever;  but  he  seemed  shy  of  my  poor  boy.  He 
had  probably  never  been  shaken  hands  with  in 
his  life  before;  he  dropped  my  boy's  hand;  and 
they  stood  looking  at  each  other,  not  knowing 
what  to  say.  My  boy  had  on  his  best  clothes, 
which  he  wore  so  as  to  affect  the  Boy's  Town  boys 
with  the  full  splendor  of  a  city  boy.  After  all, 
he  was  not  so  very  splendid,  but  his  presence 
altogether  was  too  much  for  the  earth-spirit,  and 
he  vanished  out  of  his  consciousness  like  an 
apparition. 

After  school  was  out  in  the  afternoon,  he  met 
more  of  the  boys,  but  none  of  them  knew  just 
what  to  do  with  him.  The  place  that  he  had 
once  had  in  their  lives  was  filled;  he  was  an  out- 
sider, who  might  be  suffered   among  them,   but 

187 


BOY    LIFE 

he  was  no  longer  of  them.  He  did  not  under- 
stand this  at  once,  nor  well  know  what  hurt  him. 
But  something  was  gone  that  could  not  be  called 
back,  something  lost  that  could  not  be  found. 

At  tea-time  his  grandfather  came  home  and 
gravely  made  him  welcome;  the  uncle  who  was 
staying  with  them  was  jovially  kind.  But  a 
heavy  homesickness  weighed  down  the  child's 
heart,  which  now  turned  from  the  Boy's  Town  as 
longingly  as  it  had  turned  toward  it  before. 

They  all  knelt  down  with  the  grandfather  be- 
fore they  went  to  the  table.  There  had  been  a 
good  many  deaths  from  cholera  during  the  day, 
and  the  grandfather  prayed  for  grace  and  help 
amid  the  pestilence*  that  walketh  in  darkness  and 
wasteth  at  noonday  in  such  a  way  that  the  boy 
felt  there  would  be  very  little  of  either  for  him 
unless  he  got  home  at  once.  All  through  the 
meal  that  followed  he  was  trying  to  find  the  cour- 
age to  say  that  he  must  go  home.  When  he  man- 
aged to  say  it,  his  grandmother  and  aunt  tried 
to  comfort  and  coax  him,  and  his  uncle  tried  to 
shame  him,  out  of  his  homesickness,  to  joke  it 
off,  to  make  him  laugh.  But  his  grandfather's 
tender  heart  was  moved.  He  could  not  endure 
the  child's  mute  misery;  he  said  he  must  go  home 
if  he  wished. 

In  half  an  hour  the  boy  was  on  the  canal-packet 
speeding  homeward   at  the  highest  pace  of  the 

i88 


THE    LAST   OF   A   BOY'S   TOWN 

three-horse  team,  and  the  Boy's  Town  was  out 
of  sight.  He  could  not  sleep  for  excitement  that 
night,  and  he  came  and  spent  the  time  talking  on 
quite  equal  terms  with  the  steersman,  one  of  the 
canalers  whom  he  had  admired  afar  in  earlier  and 
simpler  days.  He  found  him  a  very  amiable  fel- 
low, by  no  means  haughty,  who  began  to  tell  him 
funny  stories,  and  who  even  let  him  take  the  helm 
for  a  while.  The  rudder-handle  was  of  polished 
iron,  very  different  from  the  clumsy  wooden  affair 
of  a  freight-boat;  and  the  packet  made  in  a  single 
night  the  distance  which  the  boy's  family  had 
been  nearly  two  days  in  travelling  when  they 
moved  away  from  the  Boy's  Town. 

He  arrived  home  for  breakfast  a  travelled  and 
experienced  person,  and  wholly  cured  of  that  long- 
ing for  his  former  home  that  had  tormented  him 
before  he  revisited  its  scenes.  He  now  fully  gave 
himself  up  to  his  new  environment,  and  looked 
forward  and  not  backward.  I  do  not  mean  to 
say  that  he  ceased  to  love  the  Boy's  Town;  that 
he  could  not  do  and  never  did.  But  he  became 
more  and  more  aware  that  the  past  was  gone 
from  him  forever,  and  that  he  could  not  return  to 
it.  He  did  not  forget  it,  but  cherished  its  mem- 
ories the  more  fondly  for  that  reason. 

There  was  no  bitterness  in  it,  and  no  harm 
that  he  could  not  hope  would  easily  be  forgiven 
him.     He  had  often  been  foolish,  and  sometimes 

189 


BOY    LIFE 

he  had  been  wicked;  but  he  had  never  been  such 
a  Httle  fool  or  such  a  little  sinner  but  he  had 
wished  for  more  sense  and  more  grace.  There 
are  some  great  fools  and  great  sinners  who  try 
to  believe  in  after-life  that  they  are  the  manlier 
men  because  they  have  been  silly  and  mischiev- 
ous boys,  but  he  has  never  believed  that.  He  is 
glad  to  have  had  a  boyhood  fully  rounded  out 
with  all  a  boy's  interests  and  pleasures,  and  he 
is  glad  that  his  lines  were  cast  in  the  Boy's  Town; 
but  he  knows,  or  believes  he  knows,  that  what- 
ever is  good  in  him  now  came  from  what  was 
good  in  him  then;  and  he  is  sure  that  the  town 
was  delightful  chiefly  because  his  home  in  it  was 
happy.  The  town  was  small,  and  the  boys  there 
were  hemmed  in  by  their  inexperience  and  igno- 
rance; but  the  simple  home  was  large  with  vistas 
that  stretched  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  it  was 
serenely  bright  with  a  father's  reason  and  warm 
with  a  mother's  love. 


THE    END 


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